Cuban Missile Crisis Shows Force-Diplomacy Link

michael e.
weaver
The Relationship between Diplomacy and Military

Force: An Example from the Cuban Missile Crisis
The intersection of force and diplomacy is one of many important topics in the
fields of history and national security. Examining their conjunction brings aca-
demic specialties together and broadens one’s understanding of how political
Downloaded from http://dh.oxfordjournals.org/ at Columbia University on March 2, 2015

forces function between political actors. Such an approach can challenge military
historians, for instance, to address larger policy questions, clarify to historians of
foreign relations how particulars of armed forces interrelate with the achievement
of diplomatic efforts, and generate a more comprehensive understanding of past
events. The Cuban Missile Crisis is one of many examples one can examine in
order to study these interrelationships.
Even though scholars have intensely scrutinized the Cuban Missile Crisis for
decades, Michael Dobbs, for one, has recently argued that “there is still much to be
uncovered,” including a greater use of ex-Soviet sources, a closer examination of
more basic archival materials such as those the U.S. Air Force has yet to declassify,
and a comparison of the information the White House received during the crisis
with “the rest of the historical record” so as to produce a more accurate assessment
of the crisis.1 Dominic Tierney has noted how analysts of the tape recordings of the
Executive Committee do not agree on the precise narrative of what the committee
members said. He has also analyzed the saliency of the Pearl Harbor analogy for
assessing the usefulness of “moral historical analogies.”2 Kenneth Michael Absher
sees several lessons for intelligence gathering and analysis, while Len Scott’s recent
assessment of the crisis examines many, but not all lessons of those thirteen days.3
My own purpose is to use the Cuban Missile Crisis as a vehicle for encouraging
1. Michael Dobbs, One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Castro on the Brink of
Nuclear War (New York, 2008), xvi–xv. Thanks go to Richard Immerman, H. W. Brands, and the
anonymous readers at Diplomatic History for comments on earlier drafts of this article. The views
expressed in this article are my own and do not reflect the views of the U.S. Air Force, Air
University, the Department of Defense, nor the U.S. government.
2. Dominic Tierney, “ ‘Pearl Harbor in Reverse:’ Moral Analogies in the Cuban Missile
Crisis,” Journal of Cold War Studies 9, no. 3 (2007): 49–51.
3. Kenneth Michael Absher, Mind-sets and Missiles: A First-Hand Account of the Cuban Missile
Crisis (Carlisle, PA, 2009), 85–87. Len Scott, The Cuban Missile Crisis and the Threat of Nuclear War:
Lessons from History (London and New York, 2007), 141–62—a chapter that reviews the lessons of
the crisis.
Diplomatic History, Vol. 38, No. 1 (2014). ß The Author 2013. Published by Oxford University
Press on behalf of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations. All rights reserved.
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137
138 : d i p l o m a t i c h i s t o r y
readers, particularly those who will execute policy in the future, to understand the
ways in which force and diplomacy interact.
Historical experience has demonstrated that national security strategy is more
effectively served when military strategy and diplomacy are integrated.4 In prac-
tice, the role for the military during a crisis may range from active use, to an
instrument that makes a negotiated settlement attractive, or it may remain in the
background because its misuse could trigger an avoidable war. At the very least,
wielders of the diplomatic and military instruments of power need to take each
other into account, but a tendency of treating the two as profoundly different
remains. War, military actions short of war, and diplomacy mutually support
each other when thought of as instruments of power that inhabit the same

continuum. An examination of the Cuban Missile Crisis highlights the inter-
dependence of force and diplomacy, and demonstrates how they complement
each other during the pursuit of national security goals. Furthermore, the Crisis
underscored the mutual support of many variables within those two: conventional
and nuclear air power, naval power, diplomatic groundwork, and the use of inter-
national organizations.
Rhetoric on the resolution of international security crises tends to treat military
force and negotiations as two completely distinct realms. Politicians, military
leaders, and the public in general often segregate military actions from diplomatic
efforts, even though the interrelationship between the two has been repeatedly
demonstrated. Too often people regard the two as apples and cinder blocks (two
solids with next to nothing in common); one should however perceive of force and
diplomacy as apples and oranges—distinct but with significant similarities.5
Instead, one not infrequently encounters the assertion that “war is a failure of
diplomacy.”6 Fortunately, the differences between the United States and the
USSR in October 1962 were not irreconcilable, and a judicious use of force and
diplomacy made possible a peaceful solution.
Scholars, however, have repeatedly noted the relationship between force and
diplomacy.7 Hans Morgenthau asserted that “the diplomatic representative of a
great power, in order to be able to serve both the interests of his country and the
interests of peace, must at the same time use persuasion, hold out the advantages
of a compromise, and impress the other side with the military strength of
4. Gordon A. Craig and Alexander L. George, Force and Statecraft: Diplomatic Problems of Our
Time, 3rd ed. (New York and Oxford, 1995), 258–59.
5. Frederick W. Kagan, “Power and Persuasion,” The Wilson Quarterly 29, no. 3 (2005): 57.
6. See, for example, Kagan, “Power and Persuasion,” 57, Allan Ramsay, “British Diplomacy,”
Contemporary Review 292 (2010): 4. David Williard, “When Scholars Inform Public Policy,”
William & Mary News and Events, May 5, 2008, http://www.wm.edu/news/stories/archive/2008/
when-scholars-inform-public-policy.php (accessed April 15, 2013); Patton Oswalt, “Guns and
Yoga,” New York Times Magazine, March 25, 2007, 30. “Excerpts from an Interview with John
Kerry on Diplomacy and Defense,” New York Times, May 30, 2004, 12.
7. Paul Gordon Lauren, “Coercive Diplomacy and Ultimata: Theory and Practice in
History,” in The Limits of Coercive Diplomacy, 2nd ed., ed. Alexander L. George and William E.
Simons (Boulder, CO, 1994), 23–25.
Relationship between Diplomacy and Military Force : 139
his country.”8 In his theory of coercion, Thomas Schelling observed that effective
diplomacy requires a reserve of military force that could be utilized to achieve one’s
goals.9 Regarding the Cuban Missile Crisis, Alexander George has written that a
“purely diplomatic option” actually entailed risks of escalation into military
strikes.10
Neither is the use of diplomacy with military force an innovation new to
political leaders. The power and threat of the Royal Navy aided Great Britain
while it pursued favorable outcomes over conflicts with the United States such as
the boundary between Maine and British Canada, and the dispute over Oregon
during the 1840s.11 During the Mexican War, the Polk Administration blended
negotiations with military actions in order to achieve a lasting resolution.12

Concurrent with the initial armistice negotiations in the Korean War, the
Chinese decided in July 1951 that they needed their armies to push the
American forces further to the south of their present position in order to persuade
the United States to negotiate a truce.13 Both sides were “convinced that military
pressure was essential to force the other side to compromise” during the negoti-
ations. President Dwight D. Eisenhower threatened to escalate the war if the
North Koreans and Chinese rejected the armistice proposal of May 25, 1953.14
Shortly thereafter, the administration relied mostly on the threat of force to try to
dissuade China from using military action to take the islands of Quemoy and
Matsu.15 Three years later, he melded nuclear forces with negotiation efforts in
order to persuade the Chinese to refrain from military action against them, and
combined firm diplomatic signals with military actions designed to avoid escal-
ation to armed conflict.16 President John F. Kennedy sought to be able to use the
8. Hans J. Morgenthau, Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace, 5th ed.
(New York, 1972), 519.
9. Thomas C. Shelling, Arms and Influence (New Haven, CT and London, 1966), 172.
10. Alexander L. George, “The Cuban Missile Crisis: Peaceful Resolution through Coercive
Diplomacy,” in The Limits of Coercive Diplomacy, 114.
11. Rebecca Berens Matzke, “Britain Gets Its Way: Power and Peace in Anglo-American
Relations, 1838-1846,” War in History 8, no. 1 (2001): 30–35.
12. Dean B. Mahin, Olive Branch and Sword: The United States and Mexico, 1845-1848
(Jefferson, NC, 1997), 76, 82, 105, 109, 117, 161, 184.
13. William Stueck, Rethinking the Korean War: A New Diplomatic and Strategic History
(Princeton, NJ and Oxford, 2002), 151. Stueck’s is not an argument that force and diplomacy
were the sole factors in this war. Ideological differences, distrust, disputes over the fate of prisoners
of war, and culture, for example, were all important issues.
14. Donald W. Boose, Jr., “The Korean War Truce Talks: A Study in Conflict Termination,”
Parameters 30, no. 1 (2000), 106, 111.
15. Gordon H. Chang, “To the Nuclear Brink: Eisenhower, Dulles, and the Quemoy-Matsu
Crisis,” International Security 12, no. 4 (1988): 107–8, 118–19.
16. Shu Guang Zhang, Deterrence and Strategic Culture: Chinese-American Confrontations,
1949-1958 (Ithaca, NY and London, 1992), 239–40, 245–46, 248, 260. Leonard J. Gordon,
“United States Opposition to the Use of Force in the Taiwan Strait, 1954-1962,” The Journal of
American History 72, no. 3 (1985): 644–52, 660. Richard H. Immerman, John Foster Dulles: Piety,
Pragmatism, and Power in U.S. Foreign Policy (Wilmington, DE, 1999), 178–86. Eisenhower recog-
nized that force or force and diplomacy would not always serve his objectives. The limited ability
threat of military action “as a highly refined instrument of diplomacy,”17 but the
Cuban Missile Crisis was not Kennedy’s first use of a force and diplomacy strategy.
He utilized a deployment of conventional military forces to Europe, along with
additional instruments of power from across the NATO alliance, particularly
diplomacy, to help persuade the Soviet Union to negotiate an end to the Berlin
Crisis of 1961–1962.18 Despite the evidence of case studies such as these, the
mutually supporting relationship between diplomacy and military force is
common knowledge only among academic and professional specialists. Ideally,
my contribution will not only pass muster among Cuban Missile Crisis experts
but will also prove useful in educating individuals that force and diplomacy are best
examined in tandem.

After examining American threats against Cuba and his own country’s nuclear
imbalance vis-à-vis the United States in the spring of 1962, Soviet premier Nikita
Khrushchev decided, with the unanimous support of the Presidium of the Central
Committee, to ship medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles to Cuba.
Khrushchev resented the stationing of American ballistic missiles targeted against
the USSR on North Atlantic Treaty Organization bases, and he wished to place
the United States under a similar threat. Stationing Soviet missiles in Cuba would
help to compensate for the imbalance between Soviet and American ICBMs, gain
leverage for Soviet policy goals in Europe, and deter the United States from
invading Cuba.19 After receiving permission from President Fidel Castro to
deploy the weapons, surface-to-air missiles and medium-range ballistic missile
(MRBM) support equipment left the Soviet Union for Cuba in July, with the
to project power into Hungary, for example, and Eisenhower’s desire to avoid escalation into “all-
out war,” persuaded him to rely on information warfare and diplomacy during the Soviet invasion
of Hungary in 1956. James D. Marchio, “Risking General War in Pursuit of Limited Objectives:
U.S. Military Contingency Planning for Poland in the Wake of the 1956 Hungarian Uprising,”
The Journal of Military History 66, no. 3 (2002): 791–92.
17. Craig and George, Force and Statecraft, 260.
18. Memorandum from Secretary of Defense McNamara to President Kennedy, May 5, 1961,
Charles S. Sampson, ed., Foreign Relations of the United States, 1961-1963, Volume XIV: Berlin Crisis,
1961-1962 (Washington, DC, 1993), 62. Memorandum of Conversation, Ministerial
Consultations on Berlin, August 5, 1961, ibid., 283–87. National Security Action Memorandum
No. 92, September 8, 1961, ibid., 398–99. Memorandum of Conversation, September 15, 1961,
ibid., 413–14. Minutes of Meeting, October 19, 1961, ibid., 487–88. Lawrence Freedman,
Kennedy’s Wars: Berlin, Cuba, Laos, and Vietnam (New York and Oxford, 2000), 67. Toshihiko
Aono, “‘It Is Not Easy for the United States to Carry the Whole Load:’ Anglo-American Relations
during the Berlin Crisis, 1961-1962,” Diplomatic History 34, no. 2 (2010): 326, 328, 338.
19. Aleksandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War: The Inside Story of an
American Adversary (New York and London, 2006), 431, 434–36. Steven J. Zaloga, The Kremlin’s
Nuclear Sword: The Rise and Fall of Russia’s Strategic Nuclear Forces, 1945-2000 (Washington, DC
and London, 2002), 82. Sheldon M. Stern, The Week the World Stood Still: Inside the Secret Cuban
Missile Crisis (Stanford, CA, 2005), 18–19. Medium-range “R-12” ballistic missiles (MRBMs) had a
1,292-mile range; intermediate-range “R-14” ballistic missiles (IRBMs) had a 2,796-mile range.
Both had the capacity to be armed with one hydrogen bomb per missile. Their inaccuracy pre-
cluded using a warhead with a smaller yield. Pavel Podvig, ed., Russian Strategic Nuclear Forces
(Cambridge, MA and London, 2001), 185, 188.

Figure 1: MRBM and IRBM missile radii. CIA photograph, http://commons.wikimedia.
org/wiki/File:Cuban_crisis_map_missile_range.jpg.
first R-12 MRBMs arriving September 9, 1962.20 American reconnaissance flights

were unable to photograph their installation for ten days due to clouds obscuring
Cuba; thus the Soviets gained the opportunity to slip the missiles onto the island
undetected.21 The U-2 overflights were part of a broad continuing effort to moni-
tor and contain Cuba, so Soviet efforts at maintaining secrecy were unlikely to
remain successful.
The United States had monitored the relationship between Cuba and the
Soviet Union with great suspicion long before October 1962, and began to lay
the groundwork for dealing with Soviet actions with more than just photographic
reconnaissance (see figure 1). U.S. policymakers commenced marshaling diplo-
matic capital in Latin American during the preceding months while they prepared
and positioned military forces for use against the island. Methods included not
20. Dobbs, One Minute, 79. Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 439. Norman
Polmar and John D. Gresham, Defcon-2: Standing on the Brink of Nuclear War during the Cuban
Missile Crisis, with a foreword by Tom Clancy (Hoboken, NJ, 2006), 62, 66.
21. Major Richard S. Heyser, Interview by Robert Kipp, November 27, 1962, K239.0512-749,
Air Force Historical Research Agency (AFHRA), Maxwell Air Force Base, AL. James G.
Hershberg, “‘Before the Missiles of October:’ Did Kennedy Plan a Military Strike against
Cuba?” Diplomatic History 14, no. 2 (1990): 171.
only diplomatic coordination with Latin American governments and warnings to

Soviet envoys about the destabilizing effects of installing nuclear ballistic missiles
on the island but also violations of Cuban airspace with intelligence-gathering
reconnaissance aircraft and hints at invasion.22 State Department diplomats con-
sulted with the foreign ministers of numerous Latin American countries on how to
prevent Cuba’s Communist revolution from spreading to other nations in the
region.
The Kennedy administration’s goal of multilateral diplomatic coercion through
the OAS shared some common ground with the policies of states throughout Latin
America.23 For instance, in December 1961, President Kennedy promised
Venezuelan president Romulo Betancourt that he would not pursue “unilateral

action against the Castro government.”24 American diplomats found that the
Caribbean and Central American states shared an interest with the United States
in presenting a unified front against Cuba.25 At the beginning of 1962, Argentina
communicated that a “united front of the American nations” was “vital,” as far as
imposing economic sanctions on Cuba was concerned.26 Likewise the foreign min-
ister of Mexico, Manuel Tello, called for strengthening the ability of the
Organization of American States (OAS) to take “collective action.”27 On October
2, 1962, Secretary of State Dean Rusk briefed Latin American ambassadors on the
buildup of Soviet military forces [soldiers and surface to air missiles] on Cuba. The
ministers as well as the Organization of American States were largely in agreement
with Rusk regarding the Soviet buildup. Both stated that the Soviet presence
in Cuba constituted a threat to hemispheric unity and democracy. The ministers
called for increased surveillance of Cuba, with a particular lookout for offensive
weapons—an understated way of saying nuclear missiles. By consulting with Latin
22. Hershberg, “ ‘Before the Missiles of October,’ ” 163–64, 171. Memorandum from the
Ambassador at Large (Bowles) to President Kennedy: Report of Conversation with Ambassador
Dobrynin on Saturday, October 13, Regarding Cuba and Other Subjects, Edward C. Keefer,
Charles S. Sampson, and Louis J. Smith, eds., David S. Patterson, general editor, Foreign
Relations of the United States, 1961-1963 Vol. XI, Cuban Missile Crisis and Aftermath (Washington,
DC, 1996), 28. Hereafter referred to as FRUS XI.
23. Circular Telegram from the Department of State to All Posts in the American Republics,
June 24, 1961, Edward C. Keefer, Harriet Dashiell Schwar, and W. Taylor Fain III, eds., Foreign
Relations of the United States, 1961-63, XII: American Republics (Washington, DC, 1996), 255–57.
Hereafter referred to as FRUS XII. Kennedy’s goal was American security, and when push came to
shove, he valued anticommunism over the expansion of liberalism and democracy. Stephen Rabe,
“Latin America, the Alliance for Progress, and Cold War Anti-Communism,” in Kennedy’s Quest
for Victory: American Foreign Policy, 1961-1963, ed. Thomas G. Paterson (New York and Oxford,
1989), 115–16. James G. Hershberg, “The United States, Brazil, and the Cuban Missile Crisis
(Part 1),” Journal of Cold War Studies 6, no. 2 (2004): 9.
24. Memorandum of Conversation, Conference between President Kennedy and Venezuelan
President Betancourt, December 16, 1961, FRUS XII, 273.
25. Memorandum from the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs (Martin) to
Secretary of State Rusk, September 30, FRUS XII, 328–29.
26. A. Lincoln Gordon, Telegram from the Embassy in Brazil to the Department of State,
January 4, 1962, FRUS XII, 282.
27. Memorandum of Conversation, June 29, 1962, FRUS XII, 313.
American leaders in this way, the Kennedy administration established a foundation

for multilateral action should a crisis erupt between the United States and Cuba.28
Leaders within the Defense Department sought to blend force with diplomacy
before the crisis broke, and the U.S. military began to plan for possible offensive
operations and to take defensive measures in relation to Cuba. The Air Force
began to modestly build up Florida’s air defenses in January 1962, stationing
four F-102A interceptors at Homestead Air Force Base in south Florida prior to
the crisis.29 In August, National Security Advisor McGeorge Bundy ordered an
analysis of U.S. military options for destroying offensive nuclear installations in
Cuba.30 The staff for Command-in-Chief Atlantic (CINCLANT) produced four
operational plans for the president’s use. Oplan 312, consisting of air strikes by

tactical fighters using conventional weapons, took center stage during the crisis.
Atlantic Command conducted a series of multiservice exercises in 1962 as practice
for a possible invasion of Cuba, culminating in Phibriglex62, scheduled for that
October.31 Major General F. T. Unger of the Joint Staff reminded Paul Nitze of
the importance of synchronizing efforts with the OAS and UN if the United States
chose to attack Cuba.32 Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara had already
opened a discussion with the State Department regarding “political actions
which should precede or accompany the various military actions being planned.”33
Kennedy would not have had the opportunity to act before all of the missiles
were in place without a foundation of intelligence data. Wielders of diplomacy and
military power need to know about the capabilities, motivations, and intentions of
the adversary in order to apply instruments of power in the most productive
manner. As a case in point, signals intelligence the Navy gathered off the coast
of Cuba in July encouraged the Kennedy administration to start focusing U-2
reconnaissance flights on the island.34 Naval surveillance monitored the great
increase in Soviet shipping into Cuba from July through October.35 The
Director for Central Intelligence (DCI), John A. McCone, recognized that
28. Editorial Note, FRUS XII, 8.

29. Richard F. McMullen, The Fighter Interceptor Force, 1962-1964, U.S. Air Force Official
History, 2–7. K410.041-27, 1962-1964, AFHRA.
30. National Security Action Memo No. 181, August 23, 1962. Louis J. Smith, ed., Foreign
Relations of the United States 1961-1963, Vol. X, Cuba 1961-1962 (Washington, DC, 1997), 957–58.
Hereafter referred to as FRUS X.
31. The Atlantic Command Headquarters of the Commander in Chief Norfolk, Virginia.
“CINCLANT Historical Account of Cuban Crisis - 1963.” April 29, 1963, 17–21. National
Security Archive Document (hereafter referred to as NSAD) 3087, The National Security
Archive, George Washington University. Hershberg, “Before the Missiles of October,” 181, 187.
32. Memorandum from the Director for Operations of the Joint Staff (Unger) to the Assistant
Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs (Nitze), October 12, 1962. FRUS XI, 21.
33. Memorandum from Secretary of Defense McNamara to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff (Taylor), October 2, 1962. FRUS XI, 7.
34. Robert M. Beer, “The U.S. Navy and the Cuban Missile Crisis” (Annapolis: Trident
Scholar Project Report, 1990), 53.
35. CINCLANT Historical Account, 5. Pages 5–15 provide a good summary of intelligence
on Soviet weapons in Cuba.
something was afoot in July upon digesting reports from Cuban refugees, reports
from inside Cuba, U-2 photographs, surface-to-air missile sites, and even “routine
shipping intelligence.” He saw that the Soviets were funneling conventional
weapons into Cuba and quickly warned the administration “that the Soviets
might be placing Medium Range Ballistic Missiles (MRBMs) in Cuba.” As a con-
sequence, the defense community began thinking about options, dangers, and
complications that would be the results of such an action by the Soviets before
the crisis was upon them.36 In this way, intelligence gathering and analysis helped
to provide analytical tools and plans for the execution of mutually supporting force
and diplomacy. Even though Special National Intelligence Estimate (SNIE) 85-3-
62 concluded that the Soviets would find placing missiles in Cuba too risky,

vigilance continued, not the least because of McCone’s leadership.37 Soon there-
after the combination of human intelligence reports on the presence of R-12
missiles, and the placement of SAM sites encouraged a request for more U-2
overflights and guided the Americans as to where they should focus them: San
Cristobal. Because of these actions, the United States achieved an intelligence
success in discovering the missiles in time to take action short of war to persuade
the Soviets to remove them.38 Altogether U-2 photo-intelligence discovered three
R-14 and six R-12 sites from October 14 to 1939 (see figure 2).
Thus the discovery of the missiles in October was not a complete surprise.
Magazines and newspapers had been printing stories about Soviet activity in
Cuba for weeks.40 In August, Senator Kenneth Keating of New York accused
JFK of being asleep at the wheel while the Soviets placed nuclear missiles on the
36. James J. Wirtz, “Organizing for Crisis Intelligence: Lessons from the Cuban Missile
Crisis,” in Intelligence and the Cuban Missile Crisis, ed. James G. Blight and David A. Welch
(London and Portland, OR, 1998), 134. Jerrold L. Schecter and Peter S. Deriabin, The Spy Who
Saved the World: How a Soviet Colonel Changed the Course of the Cold War (New York, 1992), 331.
Editorial Note, FRUS X, 923. Peter S. Usowski, “John McCone and the Cuban Missile Crisis: A
Persistent Approach to the Intelligence-Policy Relationship,” International Journal of Intelligence
and Counterintelligence 2, no. 4 (1988): 555.
37. Special National Intelligence Document 85-3-62, FRUS X, 1071. Usowski, “John
McCone and the Cuban Missile Crisis,” 558–59. Indeed, it is conceivable that the United States
would not have detected the missiles in time without McCone’s intuition and leadership.
38. Raymond L. Garthoff, “US Intelligence in the Cuban Missile Crisis,” in Intelligence and the
Cuban Missile Crisis, ed. James G. Blight and David A. Welch (London and Portland, OR, 1998),
23, 18.
39. Strategic Air Command Operations in the Cuban Crisis of 1962. Historical Study No. 90 Vol. 1,
K416.01-90 v. 1, p. 13. AFHRA. Excerpt declassified in accordance with EO12958.
40. Robert Weisbrot, Maximum Danger: Kennedy, the Missiles, and the Crisis of American
Confidence (Chicago, 2001), 76–79. Memory and film portray the surprise of the Cuban Missile
Crisis as a completely unexpected bolt from the blue, but in fact the kinds of suspicions McCone
and McNamara held were shared among the media beginning in August. “Russian Ships Arrive,”
Time, August 31, 1962, 31. “Cuba: The Russian Presence,” Time, September 14, 1962, 42. It
should be noted that there were “hundreds” of reports that ballistic missiles were being placed in
Cuba—all of which were proven at the time to be false. Garthoff, “U.S. Intelligence in the Cuban
Missile Crisis,” 22–23.

Figure 2: Missile sites on Cuba. JFK Library photograph, http://commons.wikimedia.
org/wiki/File:CubaSites1962.jpg.
island, but Kennedy had naval forces practicing for an invasion just in case, and Air
Force fighter-bombers trained for air strikes against Cuba.41 The administration
knew that there were large numbers of Soviet technicians and workers in Cuba two
months before the crisis.42 Kennedy himself was involved in the October 9 deci-
sion to send a U-2 to photograph suspected ballistic missile sites.43 Attorney
General Robert F. Kennedy’s back channel to Khrushchev, Georgi Bolshakov,
had raised the president’s expectations with assurances that the USSR would
never place “surface-to-surface missiles” in Cuba, but U-2 overflights on
October 14 and 15 found signs of a medium-range missile site at Los Palacios,
Cuba, and IRBM sites at Guanajay, Cuba.44 Nevertheless, the realization of the
41. Sheldon M. Stern, Averting “The Final Failure:” John F. Kennedy and the Secret Cuban Missile
Crisis Meetings (Stanford, CA, 2003), 26. Hershberg, “Before the Missiles of October,” 186–87.
“The Tactical Air Command and the Cuban Crisis,” 683. File K417.01 62/07/00 - 62/12/00, Vol.
2, pp. 677–82. AFHRA. Excerpt declassified in accordance with EO12958.
42. Memorandum from the Director of Intelligence and Research (Hilsman) to Acting
Secretary of State Ball. August 25, 1962. FRUS X, Document 390.
43. Editorial Note, FRUS XI, 28.
44. Don Munton and David A. Welch, The Cuban Missile Crisis: A Concise History (New York
and Oxford, 2007), 53. Dino A. Brugioni, and Robert F. McCort, Eyeball to Eyeball: The Inside Story
of the Cuban Missile Crisis (New York, 1991), 198–99. Strategic Air Command Operations, 11.
AFHRA.
administration’s worst fear regarding Cuba—the island becoming a forward base

for Soviet strategic missiles—still came as a shock to the president on the morning
of October 16.45 Although the Kennedy administration reacted swiftly, the
groundwork for both military and political action had already been laid: a blend
of diplomatic efforts with military plans and preparations well under way prior to
the outbreak of the crisis.
On October 16, Kennedy convened the decision-making body called the
Executive Committee of the National Security Council—Ex Comm—to analyze
the problems the missiles presented and options for removing them. He basically
replaced the full NSC meetings with Ex Comm.46 As a result of their discussions,
many of the policymakers concluded within a couple of days that solving the crisis

required a strategy utilizing diplomacy and military force that built upon the
preceding efforts of the State and Defense Departments.47 From the first meeting,
the strategy debate focused on two options: should the president task the Air Force
with destroying the missiles with a preemptive strike without any warning or effort
to negotiate the missiles’ removal, or should efforts concentrate on reaching a
resolution through diplomacy, with the threat of military action casting a
shadow over the process and increasing the attractiveness of a negotiated solution?
Ex Comm members initially preferred some variant of Oplan 312 (air strikes with
conventional weapons), but soon concluded that the military and diplomatic
45. Dobbs, One Minute, 4–6. Brugioni and McCort, Eyeball, 223–24.
46. John Prados, Keepers of the Keys: A History of the National Security Council from Truman to
Bush (New York, 1991), 106. The president utilized this subset of the NSC because that body
“made him uncomfortable. It was large, hard to manage, and leaky. But Excomm, especially with
Robert Kennedy hovering in the background, gave JFK just what he needed, a small cohesive, and
controllable group that represented political support for the action he needed.” Robert Smith
Thompson, The Missiles of October: The Declassified Story of John F. Kennedy and the Cuban Missile
Crisis (New York, 1992), 186. Prados differs with Thompson, noting that seventy-one persons had
been “cleared to attend the Excom.” Prados, National Security Council, 110. President Kennedy
stocked Ex Comm with individuals sure to debate each other and even excused himself from some
of the meetings so as to encourage free discussion. Weisbrot, Maximum Danger, 93–94. The
following April the “NSC Standing Group” was established to concentrate on longer range
planning and monitor “on-going programs.” Bromley K. Smith, Organizational History of the
National Security Council during the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations (Washington, DC,
1988), 52–54. Members of the Ex Comm included President John F. Kennedy, Vice President
Lyndon Johnson, Secretary of State Dean Rusk, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara,
Secretary of the Treasury Douglas Dillon, Attorney General Robert Kennedy, Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff General Maxwell Taylor, Director of Central Intelligence John McCone,
Special Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs McGeorge Bundy, Undersecretary
of State George Ball, Ambassador-at-Large Llewellyn E. Thompson, Special Counsel Theodore
Sorensen. John F. Kennedy, National Security Action Memorandum 196, October 22, 1962.
FRUS, XI, 157.
47. Discussion in Secretary Rusk’s Office, August 21, 1962. FRUS X. Document 382. John A.
McCone, Memorandum of Meeting with President Kennedy, August 23, 1962. Ibid., Document
385. Memorandum from the Counselor of the Department of State and Chairman of the Policy
Planning Council (Rostow) to the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs
(Bundy), August 31, 1962. Ibid., Document 400. Memorandum from the President’s Special
Deputy Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Kaysen) to the President’s Military Aid
(Clifton), September 1, 1962. Ibid., Document 402.
options complemented each other: “we’ll develop both tracks,” General Taylor
commented. Diplomatic efforts not only held the possibility of success in their own
right, they also paved the way for military action should that prove necessary by
justifying such actions to the world. At the same time, preparations for an invasion,
a blockade, and air strikes were more than prudent; they encouraged the Soviets to
choose to resolve the crisis via negotiations, since military action was a near-term
threat and not a future abstraction.
Ex Comm also concluded that if they chose to destroy the missiles, it would be
necessary to strike before they became operational, so as a consequence the ad-
ministration had to resolve the crisis quickly.48 In this instance human intelligence,
specifically that of Oleg Penkovsky, helped the administration realize that it had

days, not hours, to make decisions in relation to the missiles becoming ready to
fire. Penkovsky had provided his British and American handlers a technical manual
on the R-12 missile.49 From that, the Americans were able “to know exactly when
the missiles would become operational.” The CIA’s Deputy Director for Plans,
Richard Helms, believed “the information gave Kennedy three extra days. . . . It
gave President Kennedy time to maneuver.”50
Several factors combined to alarm the administration. Photo interpreters con-
clusively identified the first missiles discovered as R-12s of 1,292 statute mile
range. These medium-range ballistic missiles could reach eighteen Strategic Air
Command bases as well as Washington, DC. Installing warheads required only a
couple of hours, and launch preparations as little as two to three more. America
would have little to no warning of their launch. All this encouraged the Executive
Committee to turn first to the air strike option.51 Time until completion of the
missile sites was a critical factor in determining U.S. strategy. Once they were
operational, options became more limited—better to destroy them before they
were ready to fire. Because of technological limitations, there was no defense
against ballistic missiles short of destroying them before they were launched.
Even if the Soviets did not intend to fire them against U.S. targets, several Ex
Comm members believed that Moscow could use the missiles as a distraction while
48. Transcript of a Meeting at the White House, October 16, 1962, 11:50 a.m., FRUS XI,
31–43, 45. Another transcript of this meeting asserts that Secretary Rusk stated, “we’ll develop
both tracks,” Earnest R. May and Philip D. Zelikow, eds., The Kennedy Tapes: Inside the White House
during the Cuban Missile Crisis (Cambridge, MA and London, 1997), 72.
49. Schecter and Deriabin, Spy Who Saved the World, 334. L. V. Scott, Macmillan, Kennedy, and
the Cuban Missile Crisis: Political, Military, and Intelligence Aspects (Houndmills, UK and New York,
1999), 127–29.
50. Scott, Macmillan, 128. Schecter and Deriabin, Spy Who Saved the World, 335.
51. Central Intelligence Agency, Memorandum: Probable Soviet MRBM Sites in Cuba,
October 16, 1962. Central Intelligence Agency, The Secret Cuban Missile Crisis Documents, with
an Introduction by Graham T. Allison, Jr. (Washington, DC, New York, and London, 1994), 143.
Meeting at the White House, October 16, 1962, 11:50 a.m., FRUS XI, 31–32. No author, “State
Department Internal Paper,” October 17, 1962, NSAD, 643.
they moved against Berlin.52 Others believed Khrushchev also wished to establish
leverage against U.S. missiles in Turkey in addition to bringing the Berlin issue to a
head—political objectives which made it likely that the Soviets would be amenable
a political solution.53 In an ideal world, Kennedy would have known why the
Soviets had sent missiles to Cuba, but intelligence briefs had not provided a
definitive explanation. That meant that the president could not apply force and
diplomacy against a firm target; he could use them only against what he believed
the Soviet motivation was.54
Ex Comm recognized several technical and diplomatic shortcomings of mili-
tary action by itself. For one, they did not know if they had found every site, and
certainty was out of reach because bad weather might prevent complete photo-

graphic coverage of Cuba for weeks. The need to not signal that an attack was
imminent actually worked against its success. The JCS recommended that the Air
Force should preserve surprise by foregoing low-level reconnaissance flights,
which would broadcast the threat of tactical air strikes. But the absence of high-
resolution photographs such flights would provide decreased the pilots’ chances of
seeing and striking all the targets during their attacks. A loss of surprise—a con-
sequence of prestrike reconnaissance—meant prepared antiaircraft defenses and
targets hidden under camouflage netting, an effective passive defense in that day.55
By choosing to destroy the missiles, tactical fighters would have to “ensure by
conventional means the most rapid and complete removal of” ballistic missiles,
SAMs, jet fighters and bombers, and nuclear storage sites, but their complete
destruction was unlikely.56
The fundamental problem with the air strike option was that the U.S. Air Force
would have to destroy every single missile in Cuba in order to ensure the safety of
the United States. The Air Force and CIA, however, knew the location of only
thirty-six of the suspected forty launchers. If just one operational MRBM escaped
detection, it could still destroy an American city or military base. With two missiles
per launcher, that left eight unaccounted for in their minds. The commander of
Tactical Air Command, General Walter C. Sweeney, Jr., whose fighters would
52. Meeting at the White House, October 16, 1962, 11:50 a.m., FRUS XI, 35–37. The
Americans later concluded that R-12 launchers were operational on October 15. John M.
McCone, Memorandum for Record, November 3, 1962. FRUS XI, 361. This source states that
twenty-four launchers were ready, but a Soviet source states that “up to eight missiles” could be
launched on October 20. Polmar, DEFCON-2, 179.
53. John A. McCone, Memorandum for Discussion October 17, 1962. FRUS XI, 103–4.
Memorandum of Meeting Attended in Secretary Ball’s Conference Room, October 17, 1962,
FRUS XI, 95. The United States had put 16 “Jupiter” MRBMs in Turkey as part of the nuclear
deterrent. Kennedy had wanted them returned to the United States “over a year ago” “because
they had become obsolete and of little military value.” Summary Record of the Seventh Meeting of
the Executive Committee of the National Security Council,” October 27, 1962, 10 a.m., FRUS XI,
255.
54. Garthoff, “US Intelligence in the Cuban Missile Crisis,” 24–26, 34.
55. Robert McNamara, “Notes on October 21 Meeting with the President, 11:30 a.m.-12:30
p.m.,” NSAD 738. Off the Record Meeting, 6:30–7:55 p.m., October 16, FRUS XI, 80.
56. Air Strike Scenario, October 19, 1962, draft. CMC 02136, Document 54, NSA.

Figure 3: F-100 tactical fighters. Air Force Historical Research Agency photo, AFHRA IRIS
number 1026391.
carry out the air strikes, conceded that even under the best conditions he did not
believe his planes could destroy all of the missiles during the first wave of attacks,
which left open a launch window for the Soviets. General Maxwell Taylor, the
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, similarly made no promises of 100 percent
success when he informed the president that “The best we can offer you is to
destroy 90 percent of the known missiles.”57 Taylor thus testified that force had
limits, especially when a limited use of force really needed to achieve 100 percent
effectiveness.
The generals were not writing-in excuses just in case the strikes met with less
than complete success. Their weapons suffered significant shortcomings.
Responsibility for destroying the ballistic missiles, SAM sites, and Soviet and
Cuban tactical air power in Cuba fell primarily on pilots of F-100 and F-105
fighter-bombers (figure 3). Capable by the standards of their day, they nevertheless
57. Robert McNamara, “Notes on Meeting with President Kennedy,” October 21, 1962,
FRUS XI, 139. The search for missiles continued after October 15. For instance, the Air Force
believed its reconnaissance aircraft photographed IRBMs on October 16; they later found three
IRBM sites with four launch pads each on October 23. Photo reconnaissance had already revealed
MRBMs on the 15th. “Tactical Air Command,” 764. “Transcript of Meeting at White House,
11:50 a.m.” October 16, 1962, FRUS XI, 31fn. Off the Record Meeting on Cuba, 6:30–7: 55 p.m.,
FRUS XI, 56. Alexander Fursenko, “Night Session of the Presidium of the Central Committee,
22-23 October 1962,” trans. Yuri M. Zhukov, Naval War College Review 59, no. 3 (2006): 132. R-14
IRBM missiles never arrived in Cuba; they stopped short of the blockade and returned to the
USSR. Dobbs, One Minute, 89. Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 468–69.
possessed weaknesses that made their chances of destroying every one of their
targets unlikely. Pilots aimed unguided bombs, rockets, napalm, and gunfire
through simple gunsights.58 Digitally computed aim points and laser-guided pre-
cision weapons were years in the future. The challenge they could not overcome
was finding each and every missile.59 Since the military could not destroy all of the
missiles with 100 percent certainty, a diplomatic solution had its merits.
Nevertheless, striking without warning remained attractive, for if the missiles
were the vanguard of a Soviet first strike, Kennedy would have regretted having
tried anything else but preventive action.
The JCS believed that the missiles ought to be attacked at once and as new ones
appeared, instead of waiting until U-2s had discovered all of them. To wait until

they were all ready might be too late, for the Soviets might launch the missiles as
soon as they were ready, before an air strike could arrive. Although a war initiated
from Cuba was probably not in the cards, the generals concerned themselves with
what the Soviets could do, not necessarily with what they were likely to do.60 The
greatest merit of a preemptive air strike was that tactical aircraft would destroy
most, if not all, of the missiles in the first wave of attacks.61 A broader conventional
attack would ensure the quickest and most complete elimination of offensive weap-
onry in Cuba, eliminating the possibility of a nuclear strike from the island.62
The inability to ensure 100 percent destruction of the missiles raised a higher
level problem for the administration: when faced with military uncertainties, what
is the best course of action? Is it more prudent to widen the scope of violent action,
or restrain it? The JCS, when faced with uncertainty, preferred to escalate, while
Kennedy and many within the State Department were inclined to pull back and
attempt diplomatic suasion. As will become more evident, the JCS perceived the
missiles solely as weapons, while the State Department interpreted them as instru-
ments which generated political effects. The way in which each bureaucracy per-
ceived the missiles greatly influenced their response.
Military action generates consequences beyond the target zone. For example,
an attack against even a single missile would complicate and escalate the problem
politically, because Soviet technicians servicing the weapons would certainly
become casualties. Killing Soviet citizens was just one of many problems with
using military force without any diplomatic preparation ahead of time.63 There
58. Memorandum from Secretary of Defense McNamara to President Kennedy, October 4,

1962, FRUS XI, 11. A first-generation air-to-surface guided missile, the AGM-12B “Bullpup,” was
also available, but it was not a true precision weapon. “Tactical Air Command,” 724.
59. “Tactical Air Command,” 721.
60. Robert McNamara, “Notes on October 21 Meeting with the President, 11:30 a.m.-12:30
p.m.,” NSAD 738.
61. Chronology of JCS Decisions Concerning the Cuban Crisis, SM-1451-62, 9, 15, 46. NSAD
2780. Leonard C. Meeker, “Record of Meeting,” October 19, 1962 11: a.m. FRUS XI, 118.
62. No author, “Draft. Air Strike Scenario, The Military Program,” October 19, 1962, CMC
02136, Document 54, NSA.
63. Minutes of the 505th Meeting of the National Security Council, October 20, 1962. FRUS
XI, 132.
was “no such thing as a unilateral action by the United States,” advised Dean Rusk.
He reminded the Ex Comm that America had forty-two allies and that it faced flash
points around the world. Furthermore, allied countries, not the United States,
would probably bear the brunt of any retaliation if the USSR decided to respond
militarily to an American conventional air strike against Cuba.64 The United
States simply had to consult with its closest allies on any military actions it
might take. Merely informing them of U.S. decisions after the fact was inadequate.
The Soviets might retaliate against one or more of the NATO allies—for an action
that the United States had taken without their consultation, but which put them at
risk.65 Charles E. Bohlen, the ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1957,
also warned against striking first without trying diplomacy. The allies would be

“dead against us, especially if the Soviets retaliate locally (Turkey or Italy or
Berlin).” He also noted that diplomacy would “be very useful for the record in
establishing our case for action.” If the United States had to attack at a later date,
the administration would have already explained why, and could remind other
countries that it had tried to negotiate the missiles out of Cuba. Bohlen concluded
that diplomacy was not dangerous to American objectives.66 Undersecretary of
State George Ball warned that an air strike could leave the NATO allies in “dis-
array,” and force Britain and France to adopt a Berlin policy different from
America’s.67 The use of military force, he warned, would leave a trail of political
collateral damage if unleashed unwisely.68 The president agreed that consultation
with allies prior to military action was vital. The administration had to explain the
reasons why a preemptive attack was justified, and even then the nation’s friends
might consider that an overreaction.69
On the second day of the crisis, Bohlen proposed sending letters to Khrushchev
and Castro, and consulting with the OAS and other allies prior to military action.70
In contrast to several clear military advantages, an air strike without any warning or
attempt at diplomacy had few diplomatic merits; it only demonstrated intolerance
of Soviet malfeasance in sneaking the missiles into Cuba. General Taylor was
completely aware of the political perils involved: Khrushchev may actually wish
to force a confrontation over Berlin—one that could lead to rifts within the
alliance.71
64. Transcript of a Meeting at the White House, October 16, 1962, 11:50 a.m., FRUS XI, 31.
65. Off the Record Meeting, October 16, 6:30 p.m. FRUS XI, 55.
66. Charles E. Bohlen, “Memo to Dean Rusk,” October 17, 1962, NSAD 645.
67. Memorandum of Meeting Attended in Secretary Ball’s Conference Room, October 17,
1962, FRUS XI, 94–95.
68. Position of George W. Ball (no date given), CMC 8701667, Document 36,
National Security Archive. Ball made this point at the 11 a.m. meeting on October 18. Stern,
Averting, 104.
69. October 18 Meeting, Stern, Averting, 100.
70. John A. McCone, Memorandum for the File, October 17, 1962, FRUS XI, 96.
71. Stern, Averting, 104. Memorandum of Meeting Attended in Secretary Ball’s Conference
Room, October 17, 1962, FRUS XI, 94–95.
Kennedy’s ambassador to the UN, Adlai Stevenson, likewise feared the reper-
cussions of preemptive military action without even trying diplomacy. How would
the Latin American countries respond to the U.S. lack of consultation with
them? They, too, had vital interests at stake. If America was justified in attacking
missiles in Cuba, was not the Soviet Union justified in attacking U.S. IRBMs in
Turkey? Stevenson urged Kennedy to make it clear to the Soviets in no uncertain
terms that if they did not remove the missiles, the United States would.72 Alexis
Johnson warned that enacting a blockade without coordinating with the OAS
would be the “worst” use of force—precisely because the effort to justify the
action and gain support through diplomacy would have been missing.73 George
Ball perceived disturbing parallels between an air strike and the Pearl Harbor

attack.74 A surprise attack could open “the door to a world of catch-as-catch-can
violence.” Did the administration really want to set such a precedent and “be
marked as a reckless aggressor?”75 A sound strategy had to employ force in a
manner that would not wreck good relations with friends overseas.
Confronted with the shortcomings of a military strategy executed in isolation
from diplomatic effects and concerns, Kennedy’s men began to modify their ap-
proach to favorably resolving the crisis into one that blended military action and
political efforts. Secretary of State Dean Rusk explicitly suggested a judicious use
of force and diplomacy to isolate and threaten the Soviets. That could convince
them that bending to U.S. demands was in their best interest.76 McNamara lacked
confidence in the air strike option, believing it would only destroy two out of every
three missiles. General Taylor likewise was moving toward a more nuanced use of
coercion. National Security Council minutes for October 20 reveal that he con-
ceded the political importance of giving a warning prior to launching an air strike.
Dean Rusk continued to push for consultation with allies before taking action.77
Military and political imperatives pulled President Kennedy in opposite direc-
tions. What worked best for the political solution wrecked the optimum military
solution—a surprise air strike—and the most effective military solution created
political wreckage he may not be able to repair after the strike. Kennedy needed to
balance and utilize the strengths of both approaches. Adlai Stevenson perceived
Kennedy’s fundamental problem: “I know your dilemma is to strike before the
Cuban sites are operational or risk waiting until a proper groundwork of
72. Adlai Stevenson, “Memo to Self for Conference,” October 17, 1962, NSAD 650. Adlai
Stevenson, “Memo to the President,” October 17, 1962, NSAD 652.
73. Meeting, 11 a.m., October 18, Stern, Averting, 115.
74. Off the Record Meeting, October 16, 6:30 p.m. FRUS XI, 90. Timothy Naftali and Philip
Zelikow, eds., The Presidential Recordings, John F. Kennedy: The Great Crises, Volume Two,
September-October 21, 1962 (New York and London, 2001), 539.
75. (no author), “Air Strike Scenario,” October 20, 1962, NSAD 706.
76. Audio Tape Transcript of an “Off the Record Meeting on Cuba,” October 16, 1962,
6:30–7:55 p.m. NSAD 623, 5–6, 10. Naftali and Zelikow, Recordings, 436–38, 444, 448, 465,
513–15.
77. 505th Meeting, 127–33.
justification can be prepared.”78 Furthermore, the president concluded that a sur-

prise attack against the missiles without first consulting the NATO allies might
wreck the alliance.79 An effective use of force and diplomacy required that
Kennedy order preparations for a major conventional attack against Cuba, con-
vince the Soviets that nuclear strikes would take place if they launched their
Cuban-based missiles, negotiate sincerely with the Soviets, convince world leaders
of the legitimacy of his demands, and make concessions to the Soviets as long as
they were less costly than military action against the missiles sites. President
Kennedy chose a moderate path, one which saw force and diplomacy not just
acting in parallel, but constantly intersecting while working in the same direction.
An added strain on Kennedy’s efforts to use force and diplomacy in concert was

the aggressive desires of several of his advisors who believed the missiles presented
such a danger that proactive military strikes were the proper course of action.
These included not only military officers such as generals Thomas Power and
Curtis LeMay but also civilians such as his brother Bobby, Douglas Dillon,
DCI John McCone, and even Adlai Stevenson.80 The Soviet Union might respond
in an unpredictable way that could escalate to nuclear war. For instance, “there is a
remote possibility that some local Soviet commander in Cuba may order firing of a
missile.” To Secretary of the Treasury Douglas Dillon, for instance, the survival of
the United States was at stake, so the risk of an air strike was worth it. He preferred
no negotiations. The United States ought to accept the negative political fallout
from a surprise attack rather than allow the missiles to stay in Cuba.81
The generals did not assess the political effects preemptive air strikes could
produce. The JCS had made no predictions as to the Soviet response to a conven-
tional air strike, nor did they recommend the implementation of a specific
American plan for general war.82 They viewed the crisis through a lens of military
targets and operational challenges, meaning that they perceived security in phys-
ical terms—weapons; the concept of “military” factors did not include diplomatic
and political aftershocks military posturing and attacks could generate. The JCS
78. Adlai Stevenson, “Memo to President,” October 17, 1962, NSAD 652.
79. Meeting in the Cabinet Room, October 22, 1962, 3 p.m. Stern, Averting, 152.
80. Dillon, “Memo to President.” Scott D. Sagan, The Limits of Safety: Organizations, Accidents,
and Nuclear Weapons (Princeton, NJ, 1993), 69. Stevenson, “Memo,” October 17. Naftali and
Zelikow, Recordings, 583–84. Usowski, “John McCone and the Cuban Missile Crisis,” 566.
81. C. Douglas Dillon, “Scenario for Airstrike against Offensive Missile Bases and Bombers in
Cuba,” October 25, 1962. NSAD 1334. C. Douglas Dillion, “Memo to President,” October 17,
1962, NSAD 647. Although he was secretary of the treasury, Dillon had gained considerable
experience with nuclear diplomacy as ambassador to France and as undersecretary of state
during the Eisenhower administration. James G. Blight and David A. Welch, On the Brink:
Americans and Soviets Reexamine the Cuban Missile Crisis, with a foreword by McGeorge Bundy
(New York, 1989), 10.
82. “Tactical Air Command,” 683. Air Defense Command in the Cuban Crisis, Air Defense
Command Historical Study 15, 21. NSAD 2654.
sought the destruction of threatening weapons, and for the most part considered
political concerns to be of secondary importance.83
Kennedy decided that he could best achieve his goals through a naval blockade
in combination with diplomacy and a threatening military mobilization. The Joint
Staff had presented a blockade as a possible contingency even before the crisis
broke, and Ex Comm discussed the possibility of a naval blockade from the first
day.84 He favored a coercive strategy that applied diplomatic pressure and gave
negotiation a chance to succeed, and utilizing a naval blockade as the keystone of
his strategy allowed Kennedy to be assertive and diplomatic at the same time. His
decision assumed that successful measures that did not resort to open conflict were
better than air strikes that had not been preceded by a diplomatic offensive. If the

Soviets did not intend to commence a nuclear war as soon as the missiles were
operational, the strategy of diplomacy backed by military force was not too risky.
This strategy also signaled to allies and nonaligned states that the United States
protected its interests with measured responses. The strategy gave NATO allies,
especially the Germans, time to adjust to the crisis. Furthermore, the blockade
supported one of the president’s central concerns: preserving common cause with
Western Europe and Latin America.85 In the interest of avoiding escalation,
Kennedy selected the term “quarantine,” following Secretary Rusk’s suggestion
so as to avoid “comparison with the Berlin blockade.”86 The term “blockade”
implied that a state of war exists, but the United States sought to avoid the outbreak
of war.87
Here again, military and diplomatic actions overlapped. A unilateral blockade
violated the UN charter, but one with multilateral characteristics would “have
substantial though not conclusive legal support if it were backed by an OAS de-
cision under Articles 6 and 8 of the Rio Treaty.” A multilateral agreement added
legitimacy to a blockade.88 Article 8 of the Rio Treaty did allow for the “complete
83. 9:45 a.m. Meeting, October 19, Stern, Averting, 125–26. The Strategic Air Command
history, for example, restricts itself to a tactical-level narrative. It only mentions the strategic effects
of military operations within one paragraph: “Thus, the lifting of the quarantine meant that the
immediate threat to hemispheric peace had been solved to the President’s satisfaction, but routine
surveillance would continue indefinitely to ensure they were not clandestinely returned.” Strategic
Air Command Operations, 20.
84. Memorandum from the Director for Operations of the Joint Staff (Unger). FRUS XI, 21.
Meeting at the White House, October 16, 11:50 a.m., FRUS XI. 33, 35. 505th Meeting, 128–33.
85. John A. McCone, Memorandum for the File, October 19, 1962. FRUS XI, 108–9. Minutes
of the 505th Meeting, FRUS XI, 130. Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in
the UK, October 22, 1962. FRUS, XI, 150–51. Minutes of the 507th Meeting of the National
Security Council, October 22, 1962. Ibid., 152.
86. 505th Meeting, 135. “Minutes of the 506th Meeting of the National Security Council,”
October 21, 1962, ibid., 143.
87. Leonard C. Meeker, “Defensive Quarantine and the Law,” American Journal of
International Law 57 (1963): 515. Larman C. Wilson, “International Law and the United States
Cuban Quarantine of 1962,” Journal of Inter-American Studies 7, no. 4 (1965): 486.
88. Leonard C. Meeker, “Memo to the Secretary of State,” (no date). NSAD 668. Record of
Meeting, October 19, 1962, 11 a.m. FRUS XI, 117.
interruption of economic relations or of rail, sea, air . . . communications,” if the

OAS Organ of Consultation agreed upon that course of action.89 Rusk suggested
using the Rio Treaty as the legal basis for the quarantine, and the administration
sought OAS support for this action. Kennedy nevertheless decided that the United
States would proceed with a quarantine if necessary without the backing of the
OAS, although that would result in doubtful legality.90 Bobby Kennedy warned
that if his country was going to exploit the OAS as a conduit for diplomatic pres-
sure against the Soviet Union, it had to be certain of adequate support before
proposing action to the OAS.91 Furthermore, there was legal support for the
quarantine from Article 1 of the UN Charter, requiring states to “strengthen
universal peace”; Article 2, stipulating that states not jeopardize “international

peace and security”; as well as Article 51, which allows for self-defense, although
the United States did not base its case on Article 51.92 These “laws” still require
interpretation: How are peace, security, self-defense, and threat defined?93
The administration first had to gain support from its neighbors to the south,
but the State Department was not optimistic about its chances of obtaining the
requisite two-thirds vote in the OAS for a resolution condemning Soviet ac-
tions.94 Multilateralism also made possible the loss of final authority over
American actions. Self-defense justified a unilateral strike against the missile
sites, and the United States could not afford any sort of veto by its Latin
American neighbors. Diplomatic efforts clearly carried more legitimacy than
unilateral action, but they also risked abrogating a state’s sovereign right to
act on its own.95 The president was ready to implement a quarantine in the
absence full OAS support.96
But of course a strategy centered around a naval blockade came at a cost. A
blockade could not ensure the missiles’ destruction or removal. First of all, General
Maxwell Taylor warned the president on October 19 that deciding to impose a
blockade equaled a decision to not execute an air strike because such an attack after
89. Organization of American States, Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance,

September 2, 1947.
90. Minutes of 507th Meeting. FRUS XI, 152. John A. McCone, “Memorandum for the File,”
October 24, 1962, FRUS XI, 160; this referred to the 5 p.m. October 22 meeting.
91. Record of Meeting, October 19, 1962, 11 a.m. FRUS XI, 117. McCone, “Memorandum,”
FRUS XI, 96.
92. Carl Q. Christol and Charles R. Davis, “Maritime Quarantine: The Naval Interdiction of
Offensive Weapons and Associated Materiel to Cuba, 1962,” The American Journal of International
Law 57, no. 3 (1963): 531–32, 536.
93. See Eustace Seligman, “The Legality of U.S. Quarantine Action under the United Nations
Charter,” American Bar Association Journal 49 (1963), 142–45. William L. Standard, “The United
States Quarantine of Cuba and the Rule of Law,” American Bar Association Journal 49 (1963):
744–48.
94. Leonard C. Meeker, “Memo to the Secretary of State” (no date). NSAD 668. Record of
Meeting, October 19, 1962 11 a.m. FRUS XI, 117.
95. Record of Meeting, October 19, 1962, 11 a.m. FRUS XI, 117–18.
96. Meeting with Congressional Leaders, October 22, 5 p.m., Stern, Averting, 168.
the missiles were ready for launch might provoke their use, which the United
States wished to prevent.97 In General Taylor’s opinion, the best scenario for
destroying the missiles was an attack without warning, for diplomacy might
encourage the Soviets to camouflage the missiles, greatly reducing the chances
of an effective attack.98 Similarly, a blockade warned the Soviets that further mili-
tary action could follow, and cost the Air Force the chance to hit the missiles with
complete surprise before they were all operational. Taylor believed that risks sky-
rocketed once the missiles became operational, because the launch crews might fire
their ballistic missiles if American aircraft were launched against them.99
Substituting a blockade for an air strike strategy could still subject European
allies to Soviet pressure. Soviet troops might blockade Berlin in retaliation, or

embarrass the Turks by calling for them to dismantle their Jupiter missiles.
Furthermore, a blockade lost its effectiveness over time. It could make the
United States appear less firm than it claimed to be if the Soviets balked.100 If
the administration waited until November or December to bomb the missiles,
critics could ask why the United States had to destroy the missiles when it had
put up with them for a couple of months.
The JCS discussed a blockade as well, although as a component of wider mili-
tary action.101 Imposing a blockade offered the advantages of flexibility and con-
trol, and contained diplomatic and military benefits without relying solely on
either. It lessened the chances of a sudden escalation to a nuclear confrontation
with the Soviet Union. It provided the United States time to present its case in the
UN and rally international support and sanctions. A blockade might even work—
without engaging in combat. If it did not, Kennedy could still resort to military
force.102 A blockade offered both superpowers a chance to stop and consider their
next action, instead of leaping from one fire into another, no small matter when
nuclear war threatened.103 A blockade would also reveal the Soviets’ “inten-
97. Record of Meeting, October 19, 1962, 11 a.m. FRUS XI, 118.
98. Meeting at the White House, October 16, 1962, FRUS XI, 35. McCone, Memorandum
for the File, October 17, 1962, 97. 505th Meeting, 129.
99. Department of State, Internal Paper, “Combined Scenario,” October 19, 1962, NSAD
689. Stern, Averting, 82–83.
100. G/PM Jeffrey C. Kitchen, “Memorandum to U. Alexis Johnson, The Memorandum on
Negotiation,” October 26, 1962, CMC 8701667, Document 309, NSA. Dean Rusk and the presi-
dent had already discussed the matter, and decided to not press the Turks to dismantle them until a
suitable replacement—a Polaris submarine—was on station. An early decommissioning of the
missiles would have “embarrassed” the Turkish executive. It would force him to ask Parliament
to return them to the Americans just after allocating funds for their deployment. Rusk, As I Saw It,
239.
101. Chronology of JCS Decisions, 10.
102. Dillon, “Memo to President.”
103. Record of Meeting, October 19, 1962, 11 a.m. FRUS XI, 121.
tions.”104 The Americans were unaware of this at the time, but the Soviets expected
such a strategy, so they were less likely to react impulsively against it.105
The data points in front of Kennedy suggested that force short of violence
would work. His State Department advisors believed that the Soviets wanted to
avoid a direct confrontation with the administration over Cuba. State Department
analyst Roger Hilsman deduced that Soviet leaders believed the United States
actually knew of the ballistic missiles (but was not letting on that it knew), and
coyly wished to remain noncommittal to any particular action.106 Therefore, the
administration could expect the less aggressive blockade to have a real chance of
influencing Soviet behavior.107 Regarding the interests of allies, a naval blockade
was more likely to gain OAS endorsement than a preemptive air strike. A blockade

carried the added value of being an equivalent “passive” counter to the missiles,
since no one had been killed. It was less apt to provoke retaliation against allies, and
it allowed diplomatic solutions time to work. The Americans would be able to say
that they had tried peaceful, multilateral means: “We would be in a greatly im-
proved political position should further steps have to be taken.”108
There were still risks. If a Navy ship tried to force a Soviet vessel to stop, that
could ruin diplomatic efforts, but restraint and a prolongation of the blockade and
diplomatic efforts could drift into an indefinite period where continued diplomacy
was expected and further military coercion was frowned upon because the Soviet
bases had “become part of the status quo.”109 Kennedy already realized that the
concurrent pursuit of negotiations would give the Soviets time to prepare more
missiles.110
In spite of difficulties like these, on October 19 the secretary of state was
changing his mind from supporting an air strike to endorsing a blockade, a strategy
that would encourage both sides to opt for negotiation instead of striking first.111
Robert McNamara was arriving at the same conclusion on the use of force and
diplomacy. A blockade was the wisest strategy, but, he added, the United States
104. Meeting in the Oval Office, October 24, 1962. Stern, Averting, 230.
105. Memorandum of Conversation between Anastas Mikoyan and Fidel Castro, November
4, 1962, Cold War International History Project Bulletin no. 5 (1995): 97. Mikoyan was the first deputy
prime minister of the Soviet Union, 96.
106. Roger Hilsman, Department of State, Director of Intelligence and Research, “Memo for
the Secretary: Soviets Skirt Issue of Cuban Missile Buildup,” October 21, 1962, CMC 8702115,
NSA.
107. Theodore Sorensen, Executive Office of the President, Special Counsel to the President,
“Internal Paper,” October 20, 1962, NSAD 722.
108. Department of State Internal Paper, “U.N. Aspects of Cuban Situation,” October 19,
1962. NSAD 691. See also George Ball’s opinion in May and Zelikow, The Kennedy Tapes, 143.
109. “Record of Telephone Conversation between President Kennedy and Prime Minister
Macmillan, October 25, 1962. FRUS XI, 211. Dean Rusk, Telegram from the Department of State
to the Mission to the United Nations, October 25, 1962. FRUS XI, 199. Paper Prepared by the
Planning Subcommittee of the Executive Committee of the National Security Council,” FRUS XI,
217.
110. Naftali and Zelikov, Recordings, 605. 505th Meeting, 129.
111. Dean Rusk, Record of Meeting, October 19, 1962, 11 a.m. FRUS XI, 119, 121.
had better be prepared to remove its missiles from Turkey and Italy in exchange.
McNamara believed that a blockade would not be overly provocative, because the
CIA had concluded that the Soviets would not attempt to break through it.
Furthermore, the secretary agreed that a surprise air strike was “contrary to our
tradition,” and that a blockade lessened the chances of escalation with the Soviets
and a rift with U.S. allies.112 The next day, the president conferred with British
ambassador David Ormby-Gore, put forth the two options of an airstrike followed
by a blockade, or a blockade alone, and asked him which he preferred. The am-
bassador replied that he thought a blockade was the better of the two.113
In order for a blockade to work, the United States had to make it clear that if the
Soviets failed to remove the missiles, American armed forces would destroy the

weapons. Only under such a threat was there any reason for the Soviets to give
in.114 Kennedy’s decision to utilize a blockade appears to have been an out of hand
dismissal of the air strike plans, but that was not the case. The threat of a conven-
tional air strike—under the umbrella of a massive nuclear alert—lent credibility to
the blockade.115 The administration always retained the conventional air strike as a
trump card—a visible one considering the magnitude of the tactical aircraft de-
ployments into Florida once the crisis became public—in case diplomacy was
unable to persuade the Soviets to remove their missiles.
Just as diplomacy and military force had done, conventional and nuclear forces
mutually supported each other. Kennedy heightened the alert status of American
nuclear forces in order to keep their Soviet counterparts at bay in case U.S. con-
ventional forces struck Cuba.116 With U.S. nuclear forces ready to attack, the
Soviets, it was thought, would be more inclined to absorb a conventional attack
on Soviet assets far from their own shores.117 At 7 p.m. EST October 22, while the
president announced the discovery of the missiles on television, the Joint Chiefs of
Staff ordered Defcon 3.118 SAC bomber and ICBM crews prepared themselves
for an immediate counterstrike against the Soviet Union should it launch an at-
tack on the United States. Soon thereafter, one out of every eight B-52s was air-
borne in order to be invulnerable to an ICBM attack. Remaining B-52s flew to
dispersal bases and periodically relieved the airborne alert force. A total of 183
112. 505th Meeting, 127–33.

113. FRUS XI, 140–41. Scott, Macmillan, 42–43. Macmillan supported Kennedy’s choice,
although some in the British cabinet doubted that international law would support the quarantine.
Scott, Macmillan, 51–52, 69, 70–77.
114. W. W. Rostow, Tyler, Talbot, Memo to the Secretary of State, October 24, 1962, NSAD
CMC 871667, Document number 338.
115. Stern, “Averting,” 137. McGeorge Bundy, Danger and Survival: Choices about the Bomb in
the First Fifty Years (New York, 1990), 445–53.
116. Strategic Air Command Operations, 35, 96.
117. SNIE 11-18-62, FRUS IX, 124–25.
118. Message from Joint Chiefs of Staff to: CINCSAC, CINCONAD, CINCTAC, info
Secretary of State. 11 p.m. GMT, October 22, 1962. NSAD 833.
shorter-ranged B-47s dispersed to thirty-two airports, with some venturing to

overseas bases to be closer to targets in the Soviet Union. Tanker aircraft pos-
itioned themselves to increase the flying distance of both kinds of bombers. The
Air Force’s Atlas and Titan I ICBMs took on fuel and readied for launch. Within
nine hours, 161 Air Defense Command (ADC) interceptors dispersed to sixteen
additional bases. Ordnance men armed some with antiaircraft missiles tipped with
nuclear warheads.119 Naval forces positioned themselves to enforce the quaran-
tine.120 In this way, U.S. armed forces, particularly manned bombers, put pressure
on the Soviet Union—not only through their mere existence but through specific
operational actions. This environment made a diplomatic settlement more
attractive.

Kennedy’s announcement of the quarantine generated two immediate affects:
Khrushchev ordered Soviet ships carrying weapons to not cross the quarantine
line, and Soviet military forces went to a higher alert status, including fueling
ICBMs for launch.121 The Soviets also ordered the ships carrying the R-14
IRBMs to turn around. Late Tuesday night, “the Office of Naval Intelligence
(ONI) and the National Security Agency had picked up indications of the turn-
around but, fearing deception, waited to be sure and did not inform higher
authority that night.” Consequently, the Executive Committee dealt with the
crisis without knowing this vital information when it reconvened on the morning
of the 24th.122
American naval forces also generated some subtle but critical side effects
beyond the mere function of a blockade. The preponderance of naval forces
around Cuba meant that there were enough ships and aircraft to enforce the
quarantine, which meant that Soviet ships carrying any additional missiles,
warheads, and support equipment were not going to make it to Cuba. The dom-
inance of the U.S. Navy in this instance thus generated certainty within this aspect
of the confrontation, which meant that Kennedy and Khrushchev had a couple of
fewer variables to worry about. Composed of two attack aircraft carriers, an anti-
submarine aircraft carrier, three cruisers, and thirty-two destroyers, the Navy task
force was strong but not over the top. The three cruisers, eighteen of the des-
troyers, and a few additional ships comprised the actual quarantine barrier, which
lay in an arc from east to north, 500 miles from Cuba, although ships could
intercept and follow Soviet ships farther out than that.123
119. USAF Historical Division Liaison Office, Headquarters USAF, “The Air Force
Response to the Cuban Crisis,” 6. NSAD 2811. Strategic Air Command Operations, 38.
120. Polmar and Gresham. Defcon-2, 137–38.
121. Polmar and Gresham, Defcon-2, 182–83. Zaloga, Kremlin’s Nuclear Sword, 87.
122. Willard S. Poole, History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff: The Joint Chiefs of Staff and National
Policy: Volume VIII, 1961-1964 (Washington, DC, 2011), 177.
123. Poole, History of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, 176. Robert M. Beer, “The U.S. Navy and the
Cuban Missile Crisis” (Annapolis: Trident Scholar Project Report, 1990), 143–43. Air Force
RB-47 and RB-50 aircraft joined naval patrol aircraft in searching 4.5 million square miles of
the Atlantic Ocean. CINCLANT Historical Account, 104.

Figure 4: USS Beale. USN photo NH 103710. http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/sh-usn/
usnsh-b/dd471.htm.
There were, however, still dangers of escalation, because Khrushchev had

ordered Soviet submarines to sink American warships that tried to board Soviet
merchant vessels on the high seas, informing the United States of this on the 24th
through the businessman William Knox.124 The DoD also took a step that could
have worked against the peaceful resolution of the standoff in its rules for the
quarantine; it devised procedures for Navy warships to coerce submerged Soviet
submarines to surface. Even though the United States published these procedures
worldwide through a “Notice to Mariners,” they were still aggressive and risky,
because it depended on the Soviet Navy forwarding the procedures to its submar-
ine captains; that did not happen.125 In order for a Navy ship to consider a sub-
marine “as nonthreatening,” it had to surface and proceed on an easterly course.126
If the submarine did not surface, a Pentagon spokesman stated, the Navy warship
124. Scott, Macmillan, 97. Michael R. Beschloss, The Crisis Years: Kennedy and Khrushchev:
1960-1963 (New York, 1991), 496.
125. Joseph F. Bouchard, Command in Crisis: Four Case Studies (New York, 1991), 121. Soviet
submariners were familiar with the acoustics of American practice depth charges. They were
unresponsive to these efforts and did not surface until they needed to recharge their batteries.
Ibid., 123. Dobbs, Minute, 300.
126. Curtis A. Utz, Cordon of Steel: The U.S. Navy and the Cuban Missile Crisis
(Honolulu, 2005), 31.
would use the “‘minimum amount of force necessary’ to permit a search of the
vessel.”127
Antisubmarine operations were supposed to buttress the political signaling
already being put forth by the quarantine, not function as discreet elements for
themselves, but they had the possibility of undercutting the spirit of Kennedy’s
strategy. Destroyers followed and even harassed five Soviet submarines. On
October 27, for instance, the USS Beale (seen in figure 4) dropped grenades and
pinged a submarine with sonar signals but got “no response.” Just before nine at
night, the sub surfaced. The Beale followed it for a few minutes and even flooded it
with a searchlight beam.128 One captain asked permission to drop a depth charge;
he “was denied.”129 Because each of these submarines carried a torpedo with a

nuclear warhead, this use of force against a vessel that could not carry R-12 or R-14
missiles could have been very counterproductive. In fact, the captain of submarine
B-59, Valentin Savitsky, threatened under the strain to arm and fire his torpedo at
the American ships that had been shadowing his boat so aggressively.130
The administration had made it known through its quarantine proclamation
that there were “conditions under which force would be used against merchant
ships.”131 The Navy was also prepared to fire on the Soviet merchant ship
Groznyy in accordance with its blockade procedures. Secretary of Defense
McNamara took that decision authority away from the Navy in order make sure
that the first priority in the use of force would be to further policy goals, not follow
procedures.132
As of October 23, twenty-six merchant vessels from eastern bloc countries were
steaming across the Atlantic Ocean “and bound for Cuba.”133 Finding and board-
ing them were not challenging actions for the U.S. military. During the quarantine
46 ships and 240 aircraft, Navy, Air Force, and Marine, were immediately available
for use in the search. Naval aircraft flew 4,749 sorties in search of Soviet submar-
ines.134 Maritime supremacy there also meant than when sixteen Soviet ships had
either turned for home or were standing pat, the Navy knew about it.
Kennedy wished for shrewd, not literal, enforcement of the quarantine. Thus,
the Navy allowed a tanker bound for Cuba to proceed.135 Similarly, when the
127. Beer, “The U.S. Navy and the Cuban Missile Crisis,” 133.
128. Ibid., 149. Utz, Cordon of Steel, 38–40. Deck Log, USS Beale, October 27, 1962. http://
www.gwu.edu/nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB75/asw-II-13.pdf (accessed April 15, 2013).
130. William Burr and Thomas S. Blanton, eds., “‘The Submarines of October’ U.S. and
Soviet Naval Encounters during the Cuban Missile Crisis,” 2002. Savitsky’s contemporaries ques-
tion the veracity of this account and doubt that he really threatened to arm the nuclear torpedo.
http://www.gwu.edu/nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB75/index2.htm (accessed April 15, 2013).
Dobbs, One Minute, 303.
131. Bouchard, Command in Crisis, 105.
132. Utz, Cordon of Steel, 37.
133. Ibid., 32.
134. CINCLANT Historical Account, 104, 125.
United States wished to make a point—without overly provoking the Soviets—it

did so by boarding and inspecting a ship from outside the Soviet bloc, in this case
the Lebanese Marucla, knowing from intelligence services that the Soviets trans-
ported weapons only in the ships of close allies.136 The commander of the block-
ading task force, Vice Admiral Alfred G. Ward, for one, understood that these
kinds of decisions were not tactical or operational, but were “political” and were to
be made “at a political level.”137
At the same time, these actions increased the risk that each side would continue
to escalate until military force was the next option. Each side might then become
reluctant to deescalate, which would reduce the possibilities for a peaceful reso-
lution. On October 25, for example, the JCS raised the alert status to Defcon 2

after receiving authorization from the White House. SAC wielded an overwhelm-
ing force of 145 missiles and 1,436 bombers, ready to go a day later.138 When the
Soviets intercepted the transmission of the DEFCON change, they raised their
own military alert, particularly for the ICBMs. This Soviet counter-alert may have
appeared to be attack preparations and thus had the possibly of encouraging a U.S.
preemptive strike, but the Americans did not detect this change.139 The Soviet
interception of the increase in DEFCON was an accurate piece of intelligence, but
Soviet intelligence passed along an incorrect conclusion on October 25, that the
United States was about to invade Cuba.140 This information suggested that
America was about to transition to open warfare, but in fact, the United States
was only preparing to be able to do so. The order for war had not been given, and
more importantly, the administration did not want to resort to force. So this in-
complete information encouraged Kremlin leaders to feel even more threatened,
which increased the likelihood that decisions detrimental to a peaceful solution
would be made.
136. Ibid., 33.

138. Strategic Air Command Operations, 35, 56. Dobbs, One Minute, 98. The SAC commander,
General Thomas S. Power, has been accused of acting as a loose cannon by sending the change in
DEFCON over clear channels. Transmitting DEFCON changes without encrypting them was,
however, the normal procedure until President Richard Nixon directed otherwise in 1972.
Garthoff, Reflections, 62. Sagan, Limits, 69. Alexandr Fursenko and Timothy Naftali, “Soviet
Intelligence and the Cuban Missile Crisis,” in Blight and Welch, Intelligence and the Cuban
Missile Crisis, 79. Power consulted with the JCS, and recounted a month later that, “I sensed
that there was general agreement with the soundness of these actions, and this was quickly followed
with approval.” General Thomas S. Power, Interview by Mr. Bohn, November 15, 1962, File
K239.0812-748, transcript, AFHRA.
139. Commander Pavlov [General Issa A. Pliyev], to the 8th Directorate of the General Staff,
October 27, 1962. http://www.gwu.edu/nsarchiv/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/621027%20CC%20CPSU
%20Instructions%20to%20Pliyev.pdf (accessed April 15, 2013). Central Intelligence Agency
Memorandum, The Crisis USSR/Cuba, October 25, 1962, in Central Intelligence Agency,
The Secret Cuban Missile Crisis Documents, with an Introduction by Graham T. Allison, Jr.
(Washington, DC, New York, and London, 1994), 304. Bernd Greiner, “The Cuban Missile
Crisis Reconsidered. The Soviet View: An Interview with Sergo Mikoyan,” Diplomatic History
14, no. 2 (1990): 216.
140. Fursenko and Naftali, “Soviet Intelligence,” 78–79.
In Washington, the photographs from Corona spy satellites along with

additional intelligence sources the United States possessed encouraged the presi-
dent that escalation was not getting out of hand and that he could continue to seek
a resolution without resorting to war. For instance, many of the military sites in
Cuba were “so camouflaged as to be in a low state of readiness.”141 At the opposite
end of the intelligence gathering spectrum, low altitude photographs from
F8U-1Ps and RF-101s provided necessary targeting intelligence, just is case
Kennedy ordered an attack.142
Although the nuclear mobilization served diplomatic efforts by making a nego-
tiated settlement preferable to further escalation, the nuclear threat, like the block-
ade, could not remove the missiles from Cuba. With these forces in place, Kennedy

urged Khrushchev to realize that he had lied to the United States about never
placing missiles in Cuba, that the USSR bore responsibility for the crisis, and that
the Soviets ought to return the weapons to Soviet soil.143
Diplomats can continue negotiations for years, but a military mobilization at
such a peak of readiness could not be maintained indefinitely, a weakness that
would erode the president’s options if the blockade continued for weeks instead
of days. Waiting on high alert eroded aircrews’ combat capability. After two weeks
of waiting, aircraft were going to start malfunctioning, and after a month of not
flying, the Air Force expected “extensive” system failures.144 Air, as opposed to
ground alert, wore down the maintenance-intensive aircraft then in service. Had
ADC and SAC kept the fighters and bombers flying more patrols, fewer would
have been ready to fly during an air strike. For example, after initially having ten
fighters on airborne patrols over south Florida, ADC reduced the number to four
on the 23rd.145 Similarly, Marine Air Group 14 had to sit ready for action at Key
West, but could not fly training sorties to maintain their flying skills at a sharp
edge.146 If Kennedy chose to wait a month or more, the Soviets would complete
their missile deployment in Cuba as more and more U.S. aircraft broke down from
either intensive flying or a complete lack thereof, as well as reduced maintenance—
as the administration’s threat of force began to weaken. Such limitations in
extended military readiness constrained the president’s options. Force and diplo-
macy can be used in this manner only for a limited amount of time.
141. Ernest May, “Strategic Intelligence and U.S. Security: The Contributions of
CORONA,” in Eye in the Sky: The Story of the Corona Spy Satellites, ed. Dwayne A. Day, John
M. Logsdon, and Brian Latell (Washington, DC, and London, 1998), 26. Record of Action of the
Fourth Meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Security Council, October 25, 1962.
FRUS XI, 202.
142. “Tactical Air Command,” pp. 750–54.
143. Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in the Soviet Union, October 25,
1962. FRUS 1961-1963 XI, 198.
144. “ Tactical Air Command,” 776. John A. McCone, Memorandum for File, October 24,
1962, FRUS XI, 159–60.
145. U.S. Marine Corps Emergency Action Center, 7 a.m., October 23, to 7:01 a.m., October
24, 1962. NSAD 1170.
146. CINCLANT Historical Account, 159.
Concurrent with the mobilization of military power, the administration coor-

dinated a diplomatic effort that had two objectives: removing the missiles, and
justifying a U.S. attack to destroy them if the Soviets refused to remove them. The
State Department recommended that measures for the use of military force par-
allel diplomatic preparations. American actions would show that the United States
sought a reasonable solution, but would impose its will by force in the face of
Soviet intransigence.147 The administration had to justify military action to the
American people by first exhausting diplomatic means.148 Ideally, the diplomatic
and military posturing would coerce the Soviets and also leave them a dignified
way out of the confrontation.149
The United States pressured the Soviets to ship their ballistic missiles home

through the UN and the OAS. Because the State Department had been mobilizing
Latin American diplomatic power for months, it more easily pursued Stevenson’s
recommendation to meld their efforts with those of the United States.150 This
aspect of administration strategy rightly assumed that if the OAS condemned
Soviet forces in Cuba, Moscow would have one less weapon in the public relations
war; the Soviets would be unable to call the American reaction unilateral if most
Latin American governments supported U.S. policy. A multilateral diplomatic
effort carried more weight than one waged by the United States alone.
While military forces dispersed and readied for action, State Department offi-
cials prepared diplomatic moves to preempt Soviet diplomacy.151 A Soviet com-
plaint to the United Nations about U.S. actions, for example, would upset
American posturing in case a military strike was imminent. The United States
had to ready its own complaints so as to direct attention toward the Soviets’ sur-
reptitious emplacement of missiles in Cuba. Ambassador Stevenson could, for
example, time an emergency convening of the Security Council to take place
shortly before the air strikes commenced, if Ex Comm followed that path. Allies
had to be informed, and leaks prevented.152
As a step in paving the way diplomatically for a justifiable attack on Cuba, the
secretary of state forwarded a letter from the president to Prime Minister Harold
Macmillan on the morning of October 22 telling him of the ballistic missiles in
Cuba. “I wanted you to be the first to be informed of this grave development . . . .
147. Department of State Internal Paper, “U.N. Aspects of Cuban Situation,” October 19,
1962. NSAD 691.
148. October 18 Meeting, 11 a.m. Cabinet Room; Stern, Averting, 97–98. This was not a
unique insight. Lord Alexander Douglas-Home of the British Foreign Office made a similar
recommendation—that negotiations must be attempted prior to and to justify military ac-
tion—during the Berlin Crisis in 1961. Toshihiko, “It Is Not Easy,” 331.
149. See for example, “Memorandum of Telephone Conversation Between President
Kennedy and the Undersecretary of State (Ball),” October 24, 1962. FRUS, XI, 190.
150. Stevenson, “Memo to Self,” October 17, 1962.
151. Department of State Internal Paper, “U.N. Aspects of Cuban Situation, Specific
Contingencies: U.S. Action Sequence,” October 19, 1962. NSAD 692.
152. Dillon, “Scenario for Air Strike.”
We must together be prepared for a time of testing.”153 Kennedy wished to have

his best ally at his side. He received similar warm support from President Charles
de Gaulle.154 At the same time, the Kennedy administration had to assure the
Turkish government that it rejected a Soviet comparison of the Jupiter missiles
in Turkey with those secretly installed in Cuba.155
As President Kennedy made his television speech announcing the presence of
the missiles, administration officials informed the ambassadors from the Latin
American countries about the crisis.156 He was endeavoring to at least treat
them as partners. Though these ambassadors were usually reluctant to make
quick decisions, Secretary Rusk gained their near-unanimous support for the quar-
antine; they endorsed strong action against Cuba.157 The OAS called for the

Soviets to remove the missiles at once, issuing a resolution on the 23rd permitting
armed force to be used to prevent additional missiles from reaching Cuba and to
prevent them “from ever becoming an active threat to the peace and security of the
continent.”158 The United States had successfully mobilized an important instru-
ment of diplomatic coercion against the Soviet Union. Kennedy signed the “block-
ade proclamation” on October 23 and it became active the next day.159
While Kennedy implemented the diplomatic side of the American strategy
through the Organization of American States—which functioned as the main
forum for diplomatic pressure—he used the UN to show the limited nature of
U.S. objectives, as well as for proposing a long-term political solution. The
administration also contemplated exerting pressure through the Brazilian ambas-
sador to Cuba, an avenue that had been open since the Eisenhower administration
due to Brazilian initiatives.160 Ironically, diplomatic pressure from a country less
powerful than the United States was more likely to succeed because it promised to
embarrass Castro less, and also demonstrated that more was involved than the
interests of the United States.
153. Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in the UK, October 22, 1962,
12:17 a.m. FRUS, XI, 150–51.
154. Telegram from the Embassy in France to the Department of State, October 22, 1962,
9 p.m. FRUS, XI, 167.
155. Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Turkey, October 24, 1962,
11:24 a.m. FRUS, XI, 180–81.
156. Laurence Chang and Peter Kornbluh, eds., The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962: A National
Security Archive Documents Reader (New York, 1992), 366–67.
157. Nineteen members approved the resolution; Uruguay abstained. American Foreign Policy,
Current Documents, 1962 (Washington, DC, 1966), 408. Brugioni, Eyeball, 378–79.
158. Meeker, “Defensive Quarantine,” 517. American Foreign Policy, Current Documents, 1962
(Washington, DC, 1966), 410.
159. John A. McCone, Memorandum for the Files, October 23, 1962. FRUS XI, 173.
Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 481. Munton and Welch, Concise History, 70.
160. Dean Rusk, “Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in Brazil,” October
26, 1962. FRUS XI, 228–29. Hershberg, “The United States, Brazil,” 5–7. “Minutes of the 506th
Meeting,” 148–49.
Stevenson pressured the Soviets through UN channels to not violate the quar-
antine with their ships.161 The most forceful use of the UN, of course, was
Stevenson’s public questioning of Ambassador Valerian Zorin on October 25.
When Zorin accused him of producing fake photographs, Stevenson called for
the Soviets and Cubans to permit UN inspectors to verify or refute American
accusations, at which the Soviets balked.162 This use of photo intelligence paid
positive dividends as well when the United States released photographs of the sites
to the European press.163
The United States obtained military support, however small and symbolic,
from several Latin American countries. Argentina sent search and rescue aircraft
and two destroyers. Costa Rica, Panama, Nicaragua, and Guatemala offered

basing support for U.S. forces in the blockade. Venezuela and Columbia promised
“unspecified contributions.”164 The Soviets reacted with nothing but contempt for
the Latin American actions. Zorin assured his foreign ministry that the Venezuelan
and Chilean ambassadors were reading American “crib-notes” during their UN
speeches.165 Through these efforts, the United States undermined the arguments
of those who accused it of unilateralism. But like the blockade, diplomatic pressure
to remove the missiles worked only if the Soviets cooperated.
Once the United States imposed the quarantine, leaders in the Soviet Presidium
debated their next move.166 Over the next five days, the administration received
conflicting signals as to the success of the blockade and the concurrent diplomatic
pressure it was using in pursuing the removal of the Soviet missiles. On the one
hand, several Soviet vessels, including ones carrying ballistic missiles, turned back
on September 23.167 Averell Harriman, ambassador to the Soviet Union during
the Truman administration, believed Kennedy’s efforts were working, in spite of
the premier’s threats. Khrushchev was, in his opinion, sending signals of conces-
sions that the administration had to interpret and respond to in a way that would
deescalate the crisis.168
161. Summary Record of the Ninth Meeting of the Executive Committee of the National
Security Council, October 27, 1962. FRUS XI, 272.
162. Broadwater, Adlai Stevenson, 211–13.
163. Scott, Macmillan, 117–19.
164. “Tactical Air Command,” 705. Tad Szulc, “Six Latin Countries Offer Military Aid to
U.S. in Blockade,” New York Times, October 25, 1, 24.
165. Telegram from Soviet Delegate to the United Nations. V. A. Zorin to USSR Foreign
Ministry, October 25, 1962, in “Russian Documents on the Cuban Missile Crisis,” Cold War
International History Project Bulletin 8, no. 9 (1996/1997): 285.
166. Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 467–74.
167. Executive Committee Record of Action, October 24, 1962, 10 a.m., Meeting No. 3,
Chang and Kornbluh, Cuban Missile Crisis, 165. Dobbs, One Minute, 88–91, 375.
168. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. Telegram from the Mission to the United Nations to the
Department of State, October 25, 1962. FRUS XI, 188. Harriman was in 1962 the Secretary of
State for Far Eastern Affairs.
On the other hand, construction crews continued their work to ready the mis-
sile sites in Cuba.169 Then on October 24, Khrushchev sent a volcanic reply to
Kennedy’s imposition of the quarantine, an act which he considered “piratical.”
The premier rejected the legitimacy of the OAS, saying that it had no business
meddling in Soviet-Cuban affairs, that it had no authority, and that whatever
business the Soviet Union and Cuba conducted had no effect on anyone else.
Moreover, “the Soviet Government considers that the violation of the freedom
to use international waters and international air space is an act of aggression which
pushes mankind toward the abyss of a world nuclear-missile war.” He also in-
formed the president that he would not stop his ships bound for Cuba, and warned
that the Soviet Union would take necessary measures to respond to any efforts by

the U.S. Navy to stop Soviet ships.170
The question remained: Should the administration continue preparations for
an air strike in case the blockade did not produces more substantial results, or
should it continue with negotiations?171 If negotiations stalled, a use of force, such
as halting a Soviet vessel bound for Cuba, could set off a chain of event that would
make continued diplomatic overtures appear weak, and thus counterproductive.172
The Kennedy administration continued with both. For instance, the president
approved low-level reconnaissance flights over the missile sites to keep pressure
on the Soviets.173 These benefited both diplomacy and military preparations. The
flights signaled the American goal of ridding Cuba of the missiles that were already
there, and if the Soviets rejected UN requests to inspect the sites, the United States
would have fresh information on the missiles and could bomb them before they
were ready to launch.174 Tactical strike aircraft in Florida maintained high levels of
alert, anywhere from pilots in their cockpits ready to launch to as long as a thirty-
minute alert.175 Kennedy telegrammed Khrushchev on October 25 and urged him
to return the missiles to the USSR.176 Via U Thant, Ambassador Stevenson asked
Khrushchev to stop his ships short of the quarantine line so as to allow time for
more discussions, particularly face-to-face talks in New York.177 The Supreme
169. Chronology of JCS Decisions, 44.

170. Letter from Chairman Khrushchev to President Kennedy, October 24, 1962, FRUS XI,
187. On the previous day, as stated, Khrushchev had ordered the ships transporting R-14 missiles
to return to the USSR. The famous “eyeball to eyeball” moment never actually happened as it has
been portrayed since the ships were already steaming toward the USSR. Dobbs, One Minute,
88–89.
171. Harland Cleveland, “Memo to Ambassador Thompson: ‘Operation Raincoat,’” October
26, 1962. NSAD 1425.
172. Cabinet Room Meeting, October 24, 1962, 10 a.m. Stern, Averting, 211, 217.
173. Record of Action of the Fourth Meeting of the Executive Committee of the National
Security Council, October 25, 1962. FRUS XI, 202.
174. Meeting in Cabinet Room, October 25, 1962, 10 a.m. Stern, Averting, 239–40.
175. “Tactical Air Command,” 741–42.
1962. FRUS XI, 198.
177. Telegram from the Department of State to the Mission to the United Nations, October
25, 1962, FRUS XI, 199. Telegram from the Mission to the United Nations to the Department of

Figure 5: Adlai Stevenson at the United Nations, October 25, 1962. http://commons.wikimedia.
org/wiki/File:Adlai_Stevenson_shows_missiles_to_UN_Security_Council_with_David_Parker_
standing.jpg.
Commander of NATO, General Lauris Norstad, offered to carry out low-key

preparations that would improve the readiness of his forces, but would not be so
open and provocative that they distracted from diplomatic efforts.178 Kennedy also
persuaded Senegal and Guinea to “deny the Soviets the landing rights required
for” aircraft that might possibly try to transport nuclear warheads to Cuba.179
As Kennedy continued with the dual track strategy of force and diplomacy, he
reversed their roles. He began to use the olive branch to show that he was trying to
quell the crisis with every method short of military violence (figure 5). If negotiat-
ing failed, he could therefore justify the conventional air strike. By the 26th, the
Executive Committee began codifying the strategy it had been employing
throughout most of the crisis. The Planning Subcommittee wrote that on the
one hand the United States sought “to increase the degree of our pressure
and to build anxiety in all quarters that more decisive action will be required of
the U.S. to eliminate the offensive installations,” and on the other “to maintain
a diplomatic track which holds open the possibility of a peaceful resolution on
terms consistent with the President’s speech.” Indeed, diplomacy and military
force were joined at the hip: [An] “Operational and political track involving
progressively increased pressure building up to an air strike against missile
State, October 25, 1962, ibid., 203. Summary of the Sixth Meeting of the Executive Committee of
the National Security Council, October 26, 1962, ibid., 223.
178. Stern, Averting, 200.
179. Philip M. Kaiser, Journeying Far and Wide: A Political and Diplomatic Memoir (New York,
1993), 197–99.
installations.”180 Similarly, Harlan Cleveland asked Llewellyn Thompson if the

United States wished to prepare for an air strike and pave the way politically, or
should it try to make an air strike unnecessary through political action? He urged
Thompson to try “to exhaust every peaceful remedy that may appear to be an
alternative to the direct use of force.”181
The administration’s strategy was, “in negotiations . . . (a) To afford the Soviets
face-saving cover, if they wish, for a withdrawal of their offensive weapons from
Cuba. (b) To pave the way, if the negotiations fail, for expanded U.S. economic or
military action to remove the weapons.” Preserving the interests of allies and of the
cohesion of the NATO alliance remained key elements of this strategy.182 When
discussing the coordination of efforts with NATO, Secretary Rusk cabled, “we are

combining reasonable diplomatic efforts and military pressure in even balance to
this end.”183 The president doubted that diplomacy by itself could persuade the
Soviets to return the missiles to the USSR.184 Bargaining was necessary.
Ending the crisis actually centered around Turkey, not Cuba. At first glance, an
option was to offer to remove the Jupiter missiles located there in exchange for the
return of the Soviet missiles to Russia, which Kennedy casually proposed to Ex
Comm on October 18.185 Why risk war over sixteen obsolete missiles that were
due to come off line in a few months? There were a couple of problems with that
solution. First of all, the missiles belonged to the Turks; the United States owned
only the warheads. More significantly, a trade would undermine if not wreck the
NATO alliance by making it appear as if the United States was willing to sacrifice
an ally’s security in favor of its own.186 Even though the Turks were disinclined to
even admit that these missiles were on Turkish soil, they placed great stock in them
and reacted harshly to proposals in the American press to give them up in exchange
for the removal of the Soviet missiles in Cuba.187 The short-term gains of such a
180. “Memorandum from the Chairman of the Planning Subcommittee of the Executive
Committee of the National Security Council (Rostow) to the President’s Special Assistant for
National Security Affairs (Bundy),” October 26, 1962. FRUS XI, 248.
181. Cleveland to Thompson, October 26, 1962. Cleveland was the Assistant Secretary of
State for International Organization Affairs; Thompson was Ambassador at Large, Department of
State.
182. “Memorandum Prepared by the Planning Subcommittee of the Executive Committee of
the National Security Council,” October 26, 1962. FRUS XI, 249.
183. Dean Rusk, “Telegram from the Department of State to the Mission to the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization,” 12:12 a.m., October 28, 1962. FRUS XI, 276.
184. Meeting of Kennedy, Arthur Lundahl, and John McCone. Oval Office, October 26,
1962, 12 noon. Stern, Averting, 284.
185. Naftali and Zelikow, Recordings, 532.
186. “Memorandum for the File,” October 19, 108. 505th Meeting, 136. “Summary Record
of NSC Excom Meeting 7,” October 27, 1962, 10 a.m. FRUS XI, 254–55.
187. Thomas K. Finletter, “Telegram from the Embassy in France to the Department of
State,” October 25, 1962. FRUS XI, 213. Finletter was the U.S. ambassador to NATO.
Histories of the Cuban Missile Crisis give the impression that no one but the Ex Comm and a
few diplomats were even thinking of such a trade. There was, however, open discussion of just such
a trade in the press—along with vehement denials by both governments—during the crisis.
“Turkey Denies Talk on Rocket Removal,” New York Times, October 26, 1962, 17. Sam Pope
backstabbing trade would not offset the long-term consequences to American

credibility and security. But with hundreds of nuclear weapons being brandished
about, a solution involving some sort of American concession remained attractive,
and trading the U.S. missiles in Turkey for the removal of the Soviet missiles in
Cuba could look less damaging to the NATO allies when one considers the specter
of a countermove against West Berlin.188
Two days after Khrushchev’s first warnings, the outcome looked promising. On
October 26, Khrushchev sent a letter to Kennedy offering in so many words to
dismantle the ballistic missiles if the United States would promise not to attack
Cuba.189 The Americans’ strategy appeared to be paying off. On the one hand, the
United States had avoided war, preserved prestige, treated allies with respect, and

unknown to the Americans, General Issa Pliyev received orders on the 27th to
“stop all work on deployment of R-12 and R-14 –you are aggravating the United
Nations.”190 On the other hand, the CIA believed that most of the R-12 missiles
were “operational” and could be launched “in six to eight hours.”191 In fact, all the
R-12s were operational on October 27.192 This knowledge did not lead to a de-
finitive path for force and diplomacy, one needed to know Soviet intentions. This
condition could argue for a preemptive strike, or for much greater caution.
On that same day (the 27th) a second letter from Khrushchev arrived,
noticeably harsher in tone and more strident in its demands. The premier de-
manded that the United States remove its Jupiter missiles in Turkey if it wanted
to see a nuclear-free Cuba.193 Then a Soviet air defense commander in Cuba
ordered the shooting down of a U-2. Word of its destruction heightened
Brewer, “Turkish Delegate Bars Bases Offer,” New York Times, October 28, 1962, 32. President
Kennedy also discussed the possibility with the prime minister of Great Britain. “Memorandum of
Telephone Conversation between President Kennedy and Prime Minister Macmillan,” FRUS XI,
246. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. first publicized the trade fully in 1978. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., Robert
Kennedy and His Times (New York, 1978), 519–23. Meanwhile, the Soviets directly threatened the
Turks, calling Turkey the Soviet Union’s Cuba. Philip Nash, The Other Missiles of October:
Eisenhower, Kennedy, and the Jupiters, 1957-1963 (Chapel Hill, NC and London, 1997), 137.
188. Bromley Smith, Summary Record of the Eight Meeting of the Executive Committee of
the National Security Council, 4 pm., October 27, 1962. FRUS XI, 265–68.
189. Telegram from the Embassy in the Soviet Union to the Department of State, October 26,
1962. FRUS 1961-1963, XI, 239–40.
190. Telegram Trostnik (Reed—USSR Defense Minister Rodion Malinovsky) to Pavlov
(Commander of the Group of Soviet Forces in Cuba General Isa Pliev), October 27, 1962, in
Svetlana Savaranskaya, “Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Cuba: New Evidence,” CWIHPB 14, no. 15
(2003/ 2004): 388.
191. Meeting in Cabinet Room, October 27, 1962, 10 a.m. Stern, Averting, 290.
192. Garthoff, “US Intelligence in the Cuban Missile Crisis,” 27.
193. Message from Chairman Khrushchev to President Kennedy, October 27, 1962. FRUS
1961-1963, XI, 257–60. Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 488–89. Khrushchev made
the letter public that day. The Turkish government rejected the proposal outright. Nash, The
Other Missiles, 132, 140.
American and Soviet anxiety because the shoot down increased the possibilities for
military escalation.194
In light of these events, diplomatic pressure seemed to be losing its power. The
president and his advisors again considered ordering an air strike to resolve the
immediate crisis of more and more missiles becoming ready for launch. An attack
now appeared more justified than before since a majority of the Security Council
and the entire OAS had condemned the Soviet nuclear presence in Cuba. Besides, a
single series of strikes might be less escalatory over the long run than protracted
confrontations, if the assumption was correct that the Soviets would not go to war
in retaliation. Military action would also demonstrate that the president meant
what he said, that he was willing to fight for vital American interests. U.S. cred-

ibility and resolve lost power each day the missiles remained, which lent new
urgency toward the air strike option. Latin American support might wane and
time could erode the acceptability of an air strike.195 Finally, additional dangers
remained unknown.
Military planners and political leaders often lack a complete picture of the perils
they face, and this was true in regard to Cuba. Diplomacy in this case helped the
United States avoid a severe hazard: the dozens of short-range nuclear missiles the
Soviets had installed in Cuba for defense against an American invasion. The
Americans did not realize this, even though on October 15, U-2s photographed
a cruise missile site at Santa Cruz del Norte.196 During the course of the crisis, they
photographed three cruise missile sites and one other “possible” cruise missile site.
SNIE 11-19-62 mentioned “3 cruise missile sites” (FKRs) while a November 15
intelligence summary listed a FROG (free rocket over ground) launcher at
Remedios and two FROG launchers at Artemisa. Only by mid-November did
analysts begin to mention that these rockets could mount nuclear warheads.197
After the climax of the crisis, CINCLANT speculated that since these weapons
could carry nuclear warheads, American tactical nuclear weapons ought to be
194. Meeting in Cabinet Room, October 27, 1962, 4 p.m. Stern, Averting, 344–64. Fursenko
and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 489–90. McNamara, Bundy, and Ball feared the likelihood of
extreme knee-jerk behavior. A U-2 had strayed over Siberia, and not a few Ex Comm members
feared that a mistake like this would trigger a nuclear war. Dobbs, One Minute, 269–71.
195. Dillon, “Scenario for Air Strike.” Jeffrey Kitchen, “Memorandum on Negotiation” to U.
Alexis Johnson, October 26, 1962. CMC 8701667 Document 309.
196. Savaranskaya, “Tactical Nuclear Weapons,” 385. A list of weapons the State Department
wanted removed did not mention tactical nuclear weapons. The note did include a catch-all cover-
all-the-bases phrase “or any other type of nuclear weapon,” but did not mention the presence of
short-range nuclear missiles. Telegram from the Department of State to the Mission to the United
Nations, November 7, 1962. FRUS 1961-1963, XI, 409–10. Strategic Air Command Operations, 11.
197. Lt Colonel Wallace A. Cameron, Joint Message Form DD173, October 30, 1962, in
“Tactical Air Command.” “Extract from Daily Intell Summ,” November 15, 62, ibid. Strategic Air
Command Operations. SNIE 11-19-62: Major Consequences of Certain U.S. Courses of Action on Cuba,
October 20, 1962. “Current Weekly Intelligence Review, Soviet Forces in Cuba,” November 16,
1962, NASD 2359. John McCone showed a photograph to JFK on October 26 that
McCone said might have uncovered battlefield nuclear weapons. Stern, The Week, 143. Dobbs,
One Minute, 145.
moved into position.198 Especially puzzling is why the Soviets chose to not reveal
the presence of these additional weapons after October 22. Their deterrent effect
against an invasion would have been enormous.
While the discovery of the ballistic missiles was an intelligence success,199
missing these short-range nuclear weapons was just the opposite. The inability
to detect the presence of tactical nuclear weapons on Cuba meant that threatening
an invasion was actually a much more dangerous proposition, not only because of
the obliteration of the American invasion force the FKRs and FROGs could have
inflicted, but even worse because their use would have been escalatory, and thus
counter to the coercive goals of the administration.
The Soviets considered giving the on-site commander, General Issa Pliyev,

local authority to launch them against an invasion force in case communications
with Moscow were cut, but never did.200 Khrushchev prohibited his generals in
Cuba from using these weapons to defend the island, but during the crisis Pliyev
double-checked the status of his authority to use nuclear weapons. His com-
manders in Moscow sent him this message on October 27: “We categorically
confirm that you are prohibited from using nuclear weapons from missiles, FKR
[cruise missiles], ‘Luna’ and aircraft without orders from Moscow. Confirm re-
ceipt.”201 He could only utilize them with conventional warheads.202 Although
Pliyev acknowledged that he did not have the authority to fire nuclear weapons, he
nevertheless retained the capability.203 In a crisis such as this one, the executive
leadership never had full control over the execution of their strategy.
It was thus fortunate that JFK favored diplomacy, because an attack could have
sparked Soviet use of nuclear weapons. At this point in the crisis, however,
American force and diplomacy efforts had begun to bear more of a resemblance
to trying to control a gasoline fire than they did to statecraft. Kennedy and most of
the Ex Comm badly wished to find a way out, for the momentum of the crisis was
now pressing them back toward the air strike option.
198. USMC Emergency Action Center, “Summary of Items of Significant Interest, Period
300701-310700 October 1962,” NSAD 1777. FROG was the American name for the Soviet Luna
rocket. There were 80 FKRs and 12 Lunas on Cuba. Dobbs, One Minute, 179.
200. USSR Minister of Defense R. Malinovsky, “To the Commander of the Group of Soviet
Forces in Cuba,” September 8, 1962. National Security Archive website, http://www.gwu.
edu/nsarchiv/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/620908%20Memorandum%20from%20Malinovsky.pdf
(accessed April 15, 2013). Savaranskaya, “Tactical Nuclear Weapons,” 385.
201. Copy of Outgoing Ciphered Telegram No. 20076, Director to Comrade Pavlov
[General Issa A. Pliyev], October 27, 1962. Archive of the President of the Russian Federation,
Special Declassification, April 2002. Fursenko, “Night Session,” 134, 139. http://www.gwu.
edu/nsarchiv/nsa/cuba_mis_cri/621027%20Ciphered%20Telegram%20No.%2020076.pdf
(accessed April 15, 2013)
202. Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 473.
203. Savarankaya, “Tactical Nuclear Weapons,” 386. Anatoli I. Gribkov and William Y.
Smith. Operation Anadyr: U.S. and Soviet Generals Recount the Cuban Missile Crisis (Chicago,
1994), 172.
U.S. military forces had to make few additional preparations for the conven-
tional air strike, but officials still had to prepare the way diplomatically if Kennedy
chose that option. Secretary Dillon anticipated diplomatic challenges and postu-
lated responses, with his eye on utilizing diplomacy to justify an air strike. For
instance, the United States could attempt to cast itself in a conciliatory light by
proposing in a Security Council resolution that the Soviets remove the missiles,
and by presenting additional evidence of the Soviet buildup. If the White House
decided to attack, it could first issue repeated warnings that the Soviets needed to
dismantle the missiles. If Kennedy ordered the attack, he would notify the chair-
man of the OAS shortly beforehand, the Latin American heads of state, and the
NATO allies at its initiation. If the United States went forward with the attack, its

statesmen would have to try to prevent the crisis from escalating by pointing out
the restricted nature of the attack and explain the reasons for which it was
justified.204
During the Ex Comm meeting on October 27, Bobby Kennedy intimated that
the military would have to attack soon: “Time is running out on us. This must be
brought to fruition.”205 Again, diplomatic efforts and the blockade were unable to
achieve one of the administration’s nonnegotiable goals: rendering the missiles
inoperable.206 His brother warned that it was not worth risking nuclear war when
he could avert that risk by removing the missiles in Turkey in exchange for the
removal of those in Cuba. This negotiated proposal—lessening the possibility of
war—could gain the appreciation of the NATO allies, or it could make them feel
that their interests were being sold down the river in favor of America’s. In con-
trast, RFK pressed that the military be ready to launch air strikes by Monday the
29th.207 General Taylor believed that military action should commence that
day.208 Likewise the president was prepared to order attacks on all of the SAM
sites if they shot at another reconnaissance flight.209 Here the drawback of their
brinksmanship became evident. In order to avoid losing credibility—an important
but not penultimate objective—Ex Comm eventually felt compelled to go down
the path it did not want to travel: Military action against targets in Cuba. The
administration believed it was reaching a point where it had to take bolder steps,
lest the missiles become the status quo, and thus making an attack all the more
difficult to justify.
The preparations for the use of force encouraged Kennedy to continue to try to
find a diplomatic solution, and he had one last option through the UN, the
“Cordier Maneuver,” if he needed it. Kennedy let Dean Rusk dictate a letter to
204. Dillon, “Scenario for Air Strike.”

205. Zelikow and May, The Presidential Recordings, 378.
206. October 27, 10 a.m. meeting, Averting, 304.
207. Ibid., 296–97. Stern, Averting, 308.
208. Summary Record of the Eighth Meeting of the Executive Committee of the National
Security Council, October 27, 1962, 4 p.m. FRUS 1961-1963, XI, 267.
209. Cabinet Room Meeting, October 27, 1962, 9 p.m., Stern, Averting, 374.
Andrew Cordier, a former UN parliamentarian who had direct access to UN

secretary general U Thant, proposing the removal of missiles from both Cuba
and Turkey. If he received orders to do so from the president, Cordier would hand
it over to the secretary general. Secretary General Thant could then present the
motion to the Security Council as his own idea, not as Kennedy’s.210 Kennedy’s
idea was shrewd, because if the proposal had reached the Security Council, the
United States, the USSR, and Turkey would all have a face-saving opportunity to
diffuse the crisis by giving in to the UN, not to each other. In any event, the
president never had to opt for that approach.
Another element constrained Kennedy. In order for his diplomatic efforts to
remain credible, he had to escalate his military pressure on the Soviets. On the

night of the 27th, he agreed to the mobilizing of approximately three hundred
cargo aircraft to fly troops into Cuba.211 The administration also had to convince
its NATO allies that some kind of negotiated missile trade was in their interests,
because if the United States refused to consider Khrushchev’s offer, military action
against the missiles in Cuba had to follow.212
The military meanwhile prepared orders for an air strike to commence on
October 30, while the administration tried to figure out a way to pull of a missile
trade with the concurrence of NATO.213 Diplomatic action still formed an elem-
ent of the air strike, consisting of consultation with the NATO allies about the
impending action. While preparing this option, the president continued to seek a
solution that did not involve combat.214
Ex Comm was not confident that multilateral action through the NATO
Council would result in the removal of the missiles from Cuba, which encouraged
the administration toward unilateral diplomacy. The only remaining military op-
tions short of war were a tighter blockade and an expanded military mobiliza-
tion.215 Bobby Kennedy urged resolve, warning that if the Soviets believed the
United States was giving in on the Jupiters in Turkey, they would soon thereafter
press for the removal of Jupiter missiles stationed in Italy. He believed the admin-
istration ought to wait and see what the next day would bring.216 JFK, however,
had already said that he would remove the Jupiters—if the Soviets proposed that
course of action first.217
210. Blight and Welch, On the Brink, 83–84. Rusk, As I Saw It, 240–41. A. Walter Dorn and
Robert Pauk, “Unsung Mediator: U Thant and the Cuban Missile Crisis,” Diplomatic History 33,
no. 2 (2009): 284.
211. Cabinet Room Meeting, October 27, 1962, 9 p.m. Stern, Averting, 374–75.
212. Ibid., 378–79.
213. Ex Comm Meeting, October 27, 1962, 4 p.m., FRUS XI, 267. Zelikow and May, The
Presidential Recordings, 460–61. Garthoff, Reflections, 95.
214. “Off the Record Executive Committee Meeting on Cuba,” October 27, 1962, NSAD
1544. Ex Comm Meeting, October 27, 1962, 4 pm, FRUS XI, 265–66.
215. Cabinet Room Meeting, October 27, 1962, 4 p.m., Stern, Averting, 324, 328.
216. Cabinet Room Meeting, October 27, 1962, 9 p.m., Stern, Averting, 379.
217. 505th Meeting, 133.
A segment of the Executive Committee, namely Rusk, the Kennedys, and

McNamara, concluded that a trade consisting of removing the missiles in
Turkey in exchange for shipping those in Cuba back to Russia could be arranged
under certain conditions, namely, complete denial that the trade had taken
place.218 Absolute secrecy was going to be a challenge, for the idea was already a
part of the public discourse in the newspapers.219 There could be no appearance of
a quid pro quo, so several months had to elapse before the dismantling of the
Turkish missiles began. This quid pro quo—behind the backs of the NATO allies,
and behind Castro’s back—had to be kept secret by both sides.220 The adminis-
tration had already been sorting out a way to arrange an acceptable trade. On the
24th, George Ball informed the ambassador to Turkey, Raymond Hare, that

negotiating the removal of the Jupiter missiles was a possibility, and Hare
cabled detailed trade recommendations on the 27th.221 The president used his
brother to provide the Soviets with the opportunity to make the bargain a reality,
sending Attorney General Bobby Kennedy to negotiate a deal with Soviet ambas-
sador Dobrynin to remove the missiles.222
On the evening of Saturday the 27th, Bobby Kennedy met with the Soviet
ambassador. He reminded Dobrynin that the Soviets had promised to not install
missiles in Cuba and then did so, covertly. The crisis was their fault. The Soviets
had to commit to the removal of the missiles by the next day, or America would
take care of the problem itself, even though the USSR might retaliate violently.
Kennedy did offer a pledge to not invade Cuba in exchange for the removal of the
Soviet missiles.223 There was still a way out, and both men realized they had
maneuvered each other into the same corner. Dobrynin brought up the solution
and asked Kennedy if there was a way of executing a missile trade like Premier
Khrushchev had proposed. Kennedy replied in the affirmative, noting that the
United States needed time to remove the Turkish missiles through normal chan-
nels and procedures, so as to maintain the fiction that there was no connection
between this action and the termination of the confrontation over the missiles in
Cuba. In terms of the effects on America’s nuclear arsenal, the fact that the missiles
218. Dobbs, One Minute, 307. Bundy, Danger and Survival, 432–34.
219. Brewer, “Turkish Delegate Bars Bases Offer.” Columnist Walter Lippmann and the
editor of the New York Times Max Frankel also penned such a proposal. Weisbrot, Maximum
Danger, 169–70. Max Frankel, High Noon in the Cold War: Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Cuban
Missile Crisis (New York, 2004), 123, 128, 143.
220. Dobrynin Cable to the USSR Foreign Ministry, October 27, 1962. CWIHPB 5 (1995),
79–80. Barton J. Bernstein, “Reconsidering the Missile Crisis: Dealing with the Problems of the
American Jupiters in Turkey,” in The Cuban Missile Crisis Revisited, ed. James A. Nathan (New
York, 1992), 95–96. Richard Ned Lebow and Janice Gross Stein, We All Lost the Cold War
(Princeton, NJ, 1994), 122–30.
221. Stern, Averting, 219. Chang and Kornbluh, Cuban Missile Crisis, 370. May and Zelikov,
The Kennedy Tapes, 602. Nash, The Other Missiles, 139.
222. Dobbs, One Minute, 307.
223. “Memorandum from Attorney General Kennedy to Secretary of State Rusk,” October
30, 1962, FRUS XI, 270–71.
were obsolete and slated for dismantling made this deal more than palatable.224 If
this solution went forward, both sides would have to make concessions. The
Soviets had to remove their missiles from Cuba because of American threats,
and the Americans had to later remove ballistic missiles from Turkey, an action
that risked severe damage to the NATO alliance.
About six hours after Dobrynin met with Robert Kennedy (the morning of
October 28 in Moscow), Khrushchev received a cable of Dobrynin’s discussion
with the attorney general. It required little discussion for the Presidium to agree to
Kennedy’s terms. Khrushchev had already decided to remove the missiles from
Cuba prior to RFK’s discussion with Dobrynin; Kennedy’s offer to remove the
Jupiters from Turkey was icing on the cake.225 Later that day President Kennedy

accepted the terms of Khrushchev’s letter of October 26, and agreed to withdraw
the missiles in exchange for a noninvasion of Cuba pledge. Khrushchev replied that
“all necessary condition for liquidation of the conflict which has arisen appear to
exist.”226 Before the day was over, Soviet technicians had begun to dismantle the
missile sites.227 U.S. military and diplomatic initiatives had indeed created condi-
tions in which the Soviets possessed few choices besides acceding to the American
offer. Soviet intelligence sources had even informed the premier that a U.S. attack
on Cuba was imminent, although in fact no such strike was going to take place
unless JFK gave the final order.228 A combination of U.S. military power and
diplomatic flexibility had coerced the Soviet Union into complying, but
Khrushchev believed that the USSR had achieved some of its goals since missile
deployment had led to an American promise to not invade Cuba and the “unex-
pected” removal of the missiles in Turkey.229
The administration had arranged and offered the Soviets the way out of the
crisis after backing them into a corner, just as the secretary of state had earlier
suggested. The Soviets shipped their missiles home quickly, while the United
States got to wait until the following spring when it could act as if it was casually
224. Memorandum for the Secretary of State from the Attorney General, October 30, 1962.
FRUS XI, 270–72. Dobrynin Cable to the USSR Foreign Ministry, October 27, 1962. CWIHPB 5
(Spring 1995), 76–80. In his February 1963 testimony before Congress, McNamara swore that
“the President absolutely refused to discuss it [trading the Jupiters for the R-12s and R-14s] at the
time, and no discussion took place.” Marc Trachtenberg, “The Influence of Nuclear Weapons in
the Cuban Missile Crisis,” International Security 10, no. 1 (1985): 144. This account of Turkey’s
place in the Cuban Missile Crisis is admittedly U.S.-centric; an examination of a recent book on
Turkish foreign relations suggests that Turkish sources are still unavailable to scholars. William
Hale, Turkish Foreign Policy: 1774-2000 (London and Portland, OR, 2000), 134–36. In any event,
the missile trade did not lead to difficulties in US-Turkish relations. Ibid., 136.
225. Dobbs, One Minute, 322–23. Fursenko, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 486, 488, 490.
1962. FRUS XI, 268–69. Message from Chairman Khrushchev to President Kennedy, October 28,
1962, ibid., 279–83. Telegram from the Department of State to the Embassy in the Soviet Union,
ibid., 285–86.
227. Stern, Averting, 389.
228. Garthoff, “The Soviet Story,” 76.
229. Fursenko and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 483, 490.
removing its missiles from Turkey because they had outlived their usefulness.230
Indeed, America gave up nothing. In January, it announced the replacement of the
Turkish and Italian Jupiters by Polaris SSBNs, weapons that, unlike the Jupiters,
were not vulnerable to a first strike. News reports denied that this action was part
of a trade.231 The Soviets made up for their losses in a matter of months, for by
1964 they had about two hundred ICBMs with many more under construction.232
Although tensions remained high for several more weeks, the crisis had entered
its waning phase. In order to not short-circuit follow-on diplomacy, “Quarantine
Operations were held in abeyance on 30 and 31 October” when U Thant went to
Cuba to meet with Fidel Castro.233 The last of the R-12 missiles left Cuba on
November 11, and U.S. forces maintained their high alerts until reconnaissance

photographs verified their removal and of the nuclear-capable IL-28 bombers.234
By November 20, the Soviets decided to bring these aircraft home although they
did not mention their redeployment to the Americans. The Air Force cancelled the
augmented B-52 airborne alert the following day, and it returned to Defcon 5 on
November 29.235 Surveillance capabilities helped assure the administration that it
had accomplished its goals, and thus prevented a follow-on crisis.236 On
November 1, photographs from Navy reconnaissance aircraft revealed that the
Soviets were tearing down the missile sites, and nine days later reconnaissance
flights “confirmed that all six MRBM and three IRBM sites had been
230. I have not mentioned the exchanges between John Scali and Alexaner Feklisov because
the Kremlin never received Feklisov’s messages in a timely enough manner to make use of them in
the policy deliberations, and because the Kennedy administration did not make use of the
Scali-Feklisov channel to negotiate an end to the crisis. Alexander Fursenko and Timothy
Naftali, “Using KGB Documents: The Scali-Feklisov Channel in the Cuban Missile Crisis,”
CWIHPB 5 (1995): 61–62. Furthermore, the Presidium had already decided on October 25 that
Khrushchev would offer to remove the missiles if Kennedy promised to not invade Cuba. Fursenko
and Naftali, Khrushchev’s Cold War, 483–86. Finally, Feklisov’s deal making with Scali “was not
authorized by the Kremlin.” Fursenko and Naftali, “Soviet Intelligence and the Cuban Missile
Crisis,” 81. Michael Dobbs refers to the Scali-Feklisov “backchannel” as “largely fluff.” Dobbs,
One Minute, 290, 383.
231. Memorandum of Conversation, January 16, 1963, Charles S. Sampson and James E.
Miller, eds., Foreign Relations of the United States, Volume XIII, West Europe and Canada
(Washington, DC, 1994), 858–63. Garthoff, Reflections, 135. Hedrick Smith, “Turks Agreeable
to U.S. Removal of Some Missiles,” New York Times, January 21, 1963, 1. “Turks Give Up Missile
Bases, Long an Issue in the Cold War,” New York Times, January 24, 1963, 1. “Missiles in
Mediterranean,” New York Times, January 31, 1963, 5.
232. NIE 11-8-64, Soviet Capabilities for Strategic Attack, 2. https://www.cia.gov/library/
center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/cias-analysis-of-the-
soviet-union-1947-1991/nie_11_8_64.pdf (accessed April 15, 2013)
234. Chronology of JCS Decisions, 64. Six atomic bombs were in Cuba for use by the IL-28s.
Dobbs, One Minute, 247. Munton and Welch, Concise History, 84.
235. “Tactical Air Command,” 898. Telegram Trostnik (Reed—USSR Defense Minister
Rodion Malinovsky) to Pavlov (Commander of the Group of Soviet Forces in Cuba General Isa
Plieve), November 20, 1962, in Savaranskaya, “Tactical Nuclear Weapons,” 398.
dismantled.”237 Eighty-five U-2 photo intelligence flights during November and

December meant that on-site inspections were not necessary, which made it easier
to resolve the crisis.238 For its part, U.S. Navy surface combatants followed the
Soviet ships carrying the missiles from Cuba all the way back to the Black Sea in
order to continue the confirmation of the agreement.239
As soon as the agreement was publicized, the NATO allies expressed their
relief. It “represented a major diplomatic victory for American firmness,” and
the people of Western Europe admired Kennedy’s handling of the crisis.240
Turkey’s ambassador to the United States, Turgut Menemencioglu, conveyed
gratitude to Assistant Secretary of State William R. Tyler for America’s “refusal”
to trade away the missiles in Turkey, upon which Tyler assured him that “there had

been no ‘deal’ regarding Turkey.”241 Kennedy credited SAC with providing
enough deterrent force to allow him to enforce the quarantine with a relative
minimum of force.242 And again, the preponderance of naval power in the
Atlantic had assured the operational success of the quarantine. Military power
provided him with flexibility; weakness would have limited Kennedy’s options.
Diplomatic pressure in the form of NATO and OAS unity also helped to persuade
the Soviets into complying with Kennedy’s demands.243
In order to understand the strategy employed to solve the Cuban Missile Crisis,
military and diplomatic pressure must be considered in relation to each other.
They were mutually supportive and interdependent. Although a surprise air
strike could have been most effective from a purely military point of view—the
destruction of weapons and hardware—it would have been costly in terms of
relations with other states. The world stage required justification, and the blockade
provided the Kennedy administration the opportunity to present its case. A sub-
sequent air attack on the missile sites would have then been more palatable.
He would have attempted diplomacy first, and made a case to foreign leaders.
The Air Force’s ability to carry out an effective conventional air strike (given
enough sorties) empowered the State Department’s efforts to negotiate a
237. CINCLANT Historical Account, 13–14. Strategic Air Command Operations, 19. AFHRA.
Excerpt declassified in accordance with EO12958.
238. “Memorandum for the Record, Meeting of the Executive Committee of NSC,”
November 3, 1962, 4:30 pm, FRUS, XI, 361. “Summary Record of the 31st Meeting of the
Executive Committee of the National Security Council,” November 29, 1962, 10 a.m. FRUS
XI, 541–42. Strategic Air Command Operations, 18–20. Arthur C. Warfel, History of the 4080th
Strategic Wing (SAC), Special Operations, November 1 to December 31, 1962, 2–6, 12.
K-WG-4080-HI, November 1 to December 31, 1962. AFHRA. Excerpt declassified in accord-
ance with EO12958.
240. Roger Hilsman, Bureau of Intelligence and Research, “Western European Reactions to
the Soviet Decision to Dismantle the Missile Bases in Cuba,” Research Memo REU-74, To the
Secretary of State, October 31, 1962. CMC 8702115 Document 24, NSA.
241. Memorandum of Conversation, October 29, 1962. FRUS XI, 296–97.
242. The Air Force Response, 14. Strategic Air Command Operations, 49.
243. Memorandum of Conversation, October 28, 1962. FRUS XI, 289.
settlement. In Florida, an armada of 515 tactical fighters was ready for operations
against targets in Cuba by October 22. There were three wings of F-100D fighter-
bombers at Homestead Air Force Base south of Miami, another at McCoy AFB
(central Florida) along with an F-105 wing, two wings of F-84F fighter-bombers
and another F-100D wing at McDill Air Force Base (Tampa), a wing of F-104C
fighters and Marine Air Group 14 at Key West Naval Air Station.244 The com-
mander-in-chief of Atlantic Command commented that “nuclear weapons were not
needed” for these air strikes.245 In addition, there were 150,000 U.S. Army troops
standing by for an invasion, nearly 6,000 U.S. Marines at Guantanamo Bay, and
naval forces composed of three aircraft carriers and twenty-eight additional war-
ships. Planners, however, “had underestimated the number of vessels needed for an

amphibious invasion.”246 The most important consequence of naval operations was
that it “provided the United States a position of power from which to conduct
diplomatic negotiations.” Had a transition to war become necessary, forces were in
place for a quick transition to wartime operations.247
Policymakers in this case needed to use force and diplomacy together because
the strength of one compensated for the weakness of the other. Because the Soviets
wanted operational ballistic missiles in Cuba to such a great degree, negotiations
by themselves were insufficient for persuading them to return the weapons to the
USSR. Diplomacy had to have the threat of military action behind it to increase the
attractiveness of a peaceful settlement. Force had its own limitations as well.
Given the nature of the threat, a military strike really did have to achieve 100
percent effectiveness, lest a remaining missile or two incinerate a major
American city or military target, but military forces rarely if ever have the ability
to find, target, hit, and destroy all targets on the first attempt. The shortcomings in
target acquisition and bombing precision of the day’s aircraft made a negotiated
settlement more attractive, and perhaps necessary, for the United States. In add-
ition, force generates unexpected undesirable side effects that may worsen the
situation. Force could have encouraged military escalation on the part of the
Soviets, or it could have alienated America’s allies. Likewise extended diplomacy
may work against the accomplishment of policy goals. An adversary may interpret
diplomacy alone as weakness or disinterestedness.
Air Force planning was narrow, for it omitted foreign relations considerations.
That made sense within their paradigm, which focused on “purely military” issues,
and did not see war as a continuation of politics to a degree that would have passed
muster with Carl von Clausewitz. The Air Force at that time seemed to instead see
the president as the general-in-chief. One official history, for example, argued after
the crisis that, “it is no longer possible in the nuclear age to expect a war to be
conducted without the day-to-day exercise by the President of intimate control
244. “Tactical Air Command,” 684–93, 729–30.

245. Ibid., 896.
246. Dobbs, One Minute, 208–9, 178.
over military operations.” The Air Force concluded that, “without this plan for an
air offensive, the Department of Defense would have been unable to provide the
Chief Executive with the military flexibility he needed to secure his political
objectives.”248 With an understanding of the variables involved, the Navy observed
that “operations were closely directed from Washington, presumably to insure
that the diplomatic and military endeavors complemented each other and would
not at any time be working at cross purposes.”249
The State Department considered a broader span of factors in the military and
political realms, and its diplomatic bent did not result in timidity. Its leaders
frequently expressed a noncompromising attitude, and diplomats deliberately
employed both force and diplomacy in pursuing national objectives. Diplomatic

efforts begun months earlier helped set up the conditions necessary for the reso-
lution of the Cuban Missile Crisis. For his part, the president had already laid the
military and diplomatic groundwork in the form of consultation with allies and
adequate force capabilities and operational plans.
Both leaders had less than full trust in the level-headedness of their senior
generals. Khrushchev lost confidence in the judgment of his generals when they
regarded his wishes to avoid nuclear war with scorn.250 Not a few American
military leaders had developed an all or nothing approach to the use of force as
a result of frustrations during the Korean War. They had a track record of rec-
ommending the use of nuclear weapons to solve security problems that were not
critical to national survival, as when they wanted to use them to defend the tiny
islands of Quemoy and Matzu and to defeat Communist forces in Laos.251 JCS
support for President Kennedy was somewhat reluctant, and he revealed that he
questioned the depth of their support by asking, “I know you and your colleagues
are unhappy with the decision, but I trust you will support me in this decision.”252
Kennedy had good reason for concern about General Thomas Power’s desire to
tailor the use of armed force with rational political goals; Power rejected the idea of
restraint in war, preferring to inflict the maximum number of casualties on the
enemy, as when he exclaimed, “the whole idea is to kill the bastards!”253 Kennedy
did not believe his generals would enforce a mindset of restraint, expressing to Paul
Nitze his fear that an attack on Jupiter missiles in Turkey would precipitate a
nuclear war. Robert Kennedy used the fact that many of the generals, as well as
some civilian leaders, were “itching for a fight” to convey to Anatoli Dobrynin on
October 27 how urgent it was to resolve the crisis. During the crisis, General
Power had the commander of the first set of Minuteman ICBMs—a new missile
at an under-construction site—bypass the safeguards that required four officers to
248. “Tactical Air Command,” 881.

250. Munton and Welch, Concise History, 97.
251. Craig and George, Force and Statecraft, 261–63.
252. May and Zelikow, Kennedy Tapes, 203.
253. Polmar and Gresham, Defcon-2, 244.
agree to launch the missiles so as to bring ten more missiles on line, but which
lessened presidential control. The inability of Admiral George Anderson to under-
stand the need to modify the Navy’s doctrine for blockades to fit the sensitive
character of the standoff with the Soviet Union resulted in McNamara’s loss of
confidence in his judgment.254 The reactions of Admiral Anderson and General
LeMay to the resolution of the crisis confirmed Kennedy’s distrust. When the
president thanked them for their counsel, Admiral Anderson exclaimed, “we’ve
been had!” and LeMay “pounded the table: ‘It’s the greatest defeat in our history,
Mr. President . . . We should invade today.” “The military are mad,” Kennedy later
commented.255
The leadership of John McCone, in contrast, had modified the CIA into an

agency that could provide a firmer foundation of knowledge for the administration
by gathering and analyzing data “from the entire intelligence community.” He
instituted changes that made it easier to inform the president of the possible
consequences of actions taken. He was also willing to give incomplete advice in a
timely manner instead of waiting until most all of the intelligence had been
processed and vetted. Gathering intelligence the president could use was his
priority.256 As a consequence, the executors of policy rested on a firmer foundation.
Self-interest was the final arbiter for all parties. For example, the Cuban Missile
Crisis revealed a characteristic of the relationship between the United States and its
neighbors to the south. Before the crisis erupted, the United States coordinated
and consulted with Latin American states, if not as equals, at least as with inde-
pendent sovereigns. Once photo interpreters discovered the missiles, however, the
administration formulated its strategy and was going to carry it out regardless of
the wishes of Latin American states. Its efforts through the OAS were ultimately a
window dressing of multilateralism draping a unilateral operation.
It is ironic that effective diplomacy requires strong military support. Likewise,
effective military action requires laying diplomatic groundwork, much like a
preparatory artillery barrage. The rhetoric of “diplomacy first, followed by mili-
tary action second” is a fallacy. One’s understanding of the execution of state policy
is broadened by perceiving aggressive military force and staid diplomacy not as
distinct entities, but as essentially alike occupying widely spaced positions on the
same continuum. One should not deduce the necessity of the integration of force
and diplomacy at all times from one example, but this case study verifies the
arguments of many that force and diplomacy support each other.
254. Dobbs, One Minute, 276–77, 72, 234, 309. Richard K. Betts, Soldiers, Statesmen, and Cold
War Crises (Cambridge, MA, 1977; reprint, New York, 1991), 10.
255. Beschloss, The Crisis Years, 544–45. Donald Alan Carter has argued that Kennedy never
trusted the service chiefs in the first place. Donald Alan Carter, “Eisenhower Versus the Generals,”
The Journal of Military History 71, no. 4 (2007): 1198–99.
256. James J. Wirtz, “Organizing for Crisis Intelligence: Lessons from the Cuban Missile
Crisis,” in Intelligence and the Cuban Missile Crisis, ed. James G. Blight and David A. Welch
(London and Portland, OR, 1998), 80–83. Usowski, “John McCone and the Cuban Missile
Crisis,” 548, 551.

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michael e.

The Relationship between Diplomacy and Military

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first R-12 MRBMs arriving September 9, 1962.20 American reconnaissance flights

only diplomatic coordination with Latin American governments and warnings to

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American leaders in this way, the Kennedy administration established a foundation

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28. Editorial Note, FRUS XII, 8.

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administration’s worst fear regarding Cuba—the island becoming a forward base

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58. Memorandum from Secretary of Defense McNamara to President Kennedy, October 4,

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justification can be prepared.”78 Furthermore, the president concluded that a sur-

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interruption of economic relations or of rail, sea, air . . . communications,” if the

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89. Organization of American States, Inter-American Treaty of Reciprocal Assistance,

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112. 505th Meeting, 127–33.

shorter-ranged B-47s dispersed to thirty-two airports, with some venturing to

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There were, however, still dangers of escalation, because Khrushchev had

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United States wished to make a point—without overly provoking the Soviets—it

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136. Ibid., 33.

In Washington, the photographs from Corona spy satellites along with

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Concurrent with the mobilization of military power, the administration coor-

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We must together be prepared for a time of testing.”153 Kennedy wished to have

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169. Chronology of JCS Decisions, 44.

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Commander of NATO, General Lauris Norstad, offered to carry out low-key

installations.”180 Similarly, Harlan Cleveland asked Llewellyn Thompson if the

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backstabbing trade would not offset the long-term consequences to American

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204. Dillon, “Scenario for Air Strike.”

Andrew Cordier, a former UN parliamentarian who had direct access to UN

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